The Historical Merging of Human Groups

Understanding human evolution has progressed step by step during my lifetime. One of the most sensational discoveries was the evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals, who lived in Europe before modern humans, and our ancestors.

Significant new information has once again been obtained on this matter. It was based on an excellent idea: previously, the focus had been on determining how much Neanderthal DNA is present in our genes, but now researchers decided to investigate how much so-called modern human DNA is present in Neanderthal genes.

This was possible using two criteria. The first was based on the fact that Neanderthals were already known to be much fewer in number than modern humans, so their genomes likely contained less variation. Thus, the more variable regions of the Neanderthal genome would be possible gene regions originating from modern humans.

When such gene regions were then found, the corresponding segments of heritage could be searched for in modern Africans, who have never interbred with Neanderthals. If they had similar genome segments to the now-found more variable regions, they must have developed in modern humans and not in Neanderthals. And indeed, this confirmed that as much as about ten percent of Neanderthal genes ultimately came from modern humans.

Based on this new information, it can also be concluded that Neanderthals may not have disappeared from the world after all but simply merged into the much more numerous populations of modern humans. And they left their genetic mark on them— a set of genes that developed in Neanderthals and have since been passed down to me and to all of you, dear readers, unless you are entirely of African descent.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The amazing adventures of the German cockroach
Violent demographic changes in Denmark
American black population more vulnerable to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2