You've probably heard the story about how Neanderthals were living in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, when suddenly a bunch of Homo sapiens came pouring out of Africa about 70 thousand years ago. 30 thousand years later, pretty much all the Neanderthals were dead. Many anthropologists believe that Homo sapiens killed off our large-browed cousins in a quest to dominate the Eurasian continent. But over the past 10 years, that view has changed radically thanks to new techniques for sequencing ancient DNA.
Now, two new studies make it even less likely that modern humans killed off the Neanderthals. Instead, we interbred with them at least three separate times, and our ancestors were likely sharing tools with them half a million years ago.
A mysterious common ancestor
Writing in Nature, a team of scientists recount how they carefully sequenced the DNA from a mysterious group of 430 thousand-year-old humans found in Sima de los Huesos, a cavern in Spain's Atapuerca mountains. Thanks to careful preservation of the remains, they were able to extract both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, allowing them to analyze genetic contributions from the group's mothers and fathers. What they discovered has upended the classic story of how Neanderthals got to Europe, and when. The Sima hominins are clearly early Neanderthals, living in Spain far earlier than expected.
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