December 13, 2024 1:00 PM

Genomes reveal timing of Homo sapiens interbreeding with Neanderthals

Neanderthals went extinct roughly 39,000 years ago, but in some sense these close cousins of our species are not gone. Their legacy lives on in the genomes of most people on Earth, thanks to interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. New research is providing the most precise estimate to date of when this mixing occurred - with the height of the interaction around 47,000 years ago - and showing how Neanderthal components have shaped the human genome in functions such as skin pigmentat...