The theory of human evolution has once again seen its foundations shake with the publication in the journal Nature of the analysis of the genome of Homo Neanderthalensis , whose genetic mix indicates that this species mated with our direct ancestors 50,000 years ago . According to the results, the miscegenation did not only occur with Homo sapiens , but also occurred with the rest of the groups of hominids that coexisted in Europe and Asia for thousands of years.
The Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany), the forerunner of the finding, had already published in 2010 a first draft of the Neanderthal genome that showed evidence of hybridization between the first hominid species. Scientists pieced together the Neanderthal man’s genetic sequence from the fossilized finger of a woman found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.
Genome analysis has revealed a crossbreeding between the extinct hominid and modern man 50,000 years ago. The prehistoric exogamy does not stop there, as Neanderthals also mixed their blood with Denisovans, an archaic species known only for its genetic sequence obtained from a finger bone found in the same Siberian cave. The results also show that the DNA of the three known hominid species that inhabited Eurasia in the late Pleistocene contains sequences that do not correspond to any of them, suggesting that they coexisted with a fourth human species that has not yet been discovered .
The research concludes that copulation between individuals of different species was common among human ancestors and that, due to this past crossing, we carry 2% of Neanderthal genes .
