Why do we know so much about Neanderthals?

Together with an Asian people known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives. Scientific evidence suggests our two species shared a common ancestor. Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago.

Do humans still have Neanderthal genes?

Neanderthals have contributed approximately 1-4\% of the genomes of non-African modern humans, although a modern human who lived about 40,000 years ago has been found to have between 6-9\% Neanderthal DNA (Fu et al 2015).

Were Neanderthals better at surviving than Homo sapiens?

Early Homo sapiens, in other words, weren’t fundamentally better at surviving than Neanderthals were. What does this new view of Neanderthals teach us? In many ways they were super resilient. We know they were flexible, adaptable survivors who weathered repeated and extreme climate change.

What did the Neanderthals Hunt?

Neanderthals were top hunters who took on prey ranging from true mega-fauna like mammoths and woolly rhinos to small game. Whether hunting or foraging, a deep knowledge of the world guided them—they knew the best way to take apart a reindeer, how to roast a tortoise or where to gather water-lily roots.

What happened to the early Homo sapiens of Eurasia?

Yet those early explorers of Eurasia vanished into evolutionary oblivion, leaving virtually no surviving DNA lineages visible in people today, and were replaced themselves by multiple waves of later populations. Early Homo sapiens, in other words, weren’t fundamentally better at surviving than Neanderthals were.

Were our ancestors alone on Earth?

From the Cape of Good Hope to the Blue Mountains of Australia, our H. sapiens ancestors were alone on Earth. This point has typically been framed as a victory of our species, a vision in which we are the successful explorers or conquerors, but maybe it was the opposite.