Neanderthal Genome Published

Date: May 7, 2010 • Location: Rome, Italy

A draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome was published, demonstrating that most living humans have Neanderthal ancestors.

Neanderthals are an extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle to Late Pleistocene. The timeline of Neanderthal extinction is uncertain, but generally considered to be complete in Asia and most of Europe by 40,000 years ago, perhaps because early modern humans came to Europe. Neanderthals seem to have survived longer in some parts of the Iberian Peninsula.