Humans May Have Been Having Kids With Neanderthals Much Longer Than We Thought

Scientists now think that modern humans and Neanderthals might have started creating offspring together much earlier and more frequently than we used to believe.

According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, our genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes in the cell nucleus and one chromosome in the cell’s mitochondria.

This DNA pool contains everything needed for a person to develop and function as an adult.

Back in 2010, experts started looking at modern human genomes and discovered that Neanderthal genomes were also present, as reported by IFL Science.

The working theory was that there had been some sexual contact between these ancient humans. Recent research has cemented this idea even further.

In a paper recently published in Science, researchers admitted they had re-examined the 2010 study by looking at how many modern human genes were present in the Neanderthal genome.

Scientists have been studying genomes to uncover the truth. Getty stock images

The results revealed that these ancient beings inherited as much as 10 percent of the modern human genome.

This finding further proves that Neanderthals and modern humans mingled in the past.

The study, led by Princeton University geneticist Joshua Akey, involved analyzing genomes in hopes of discovering exactly when modern humans and Neanderthals began intermingling.

The research team studied 2,000 living human genomes as well as three Neanderthal genomes and one Denisovan genome over a span of 200,000 years.

According to their report, they found that modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals began producing offspring between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago.

These interactions were repeated 105,000 to 120,000 years ago and again around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

This suggests that modern-day humans traveled from Africa to Europe to mate with Neanderthals more times than previously thought.

Akey noted, “We now know that for the vast majority of human history, we've had a history of contact between modern humans and Neanderthals.

“To me, this story is about dispersal, that modern humans have been moving around and encountering Neanderthals and Denisovans much more than we previously recognized.”

To reach this conclusion, scientists studied the flow of genetic information over 200,000 years and discovered that 2.5-3.7 percent of human ancestry is present in Neanderthal DNA.

The study concludes that modern-day humans arrived in Europe from Africa to breed with Neanderthals around 200,000 years ago.

Neanderthals and modern humans are thought to have mingled earlier than originally believed. Getty stock images

Later, their genomes were likely assimilated into the Neanderthal populations.

“This is the first time that geneticists have identified multiple waves of modern human-Neanderthal admixture,” said Liming Li, a professor in the Department of Medical Genetics and Developmental Biology at Southeast University in Nanjing, China.

You can read the newly published study on gene flow between Neanderthals and modern humans here.