Toe Fossil Provides Complete Neanderthal Genome

[sybylla]

9. Neanderthals never left. They just assimilated.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/30919/title/Neanderthal-DNA-in-Modern-Humans/flagPost/60484/
Neanderthal DNA in Modern Humans
Non-African people carry remnants of the Neanderthal X chromosome, suggesting interbreeding with early human ancestors.

...Thanks to last year’s complete sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, the researchers could compare the genomes of more than 6,000 modern humans with the ancient hominid, and found similar intronic sequences on the Neanderthal X chromosome, as well as on the X of people from all continents except sub-Saharan Africa. The results are published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

“There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating [of] our ancestors and Neanderthals,” Nick Patterson of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University said in a press release. “This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details.”