According to a recent study, Neanderthals mated with our
modern ancestors 100,000 years earlier than previously believed.
A five-year-old child who lived 140,000 years ago had
parents from both species, according to experts.
Ninety years ago, their fossil—likely a female—was
discovered in the Skhul Cave on Mount Carmel in modern-day northern Israel.
The remaining bones underwent a battery of sophisticated
examinations, including a CT scan of the skull, by a team from Tel Aviv
University and the French Centre for Scientific Research.
Lead author Professor Israel Hershkovitz stated,
"Genetic research over the past decade have indicated that these two
populations exchanged genes."
"Even now, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals
vanished, two to 6% of our genome is Neanderthal in origin."However, these
gene exchanges occurred between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, which is a very
long time ago. We are talking about a 140,000-year-old human fossil here.
In our work, we demonstrate that the child's skull has a lower jaw, an inner ear structure typical of Neanderthals, and an intracranial blood supply system, despite having a general shape similar to that of Homo sapiens, particularly in the curvature of the skull vault.
