Ancient DNA Pinpoints When Humans Mated With Neanderthals

Two new research papers have shed some light on an important moment in human evolution — the one when humans and Neanderthals started fucking. It’s genuinely beautiful to know that there are researchers out there who care so much about finding out how we got to this point in our existence that they will devote their lives to understanding how two different types of ancient humans had sex with each other. Science, baby. It’s the best.

One of those studies, published in a scientific journal uncreatively called Science, analyzed the genomes of a whole bunch of present-day and ancient humans. The researchers found that Neanderthal interbreeding occurred over 7,000 years, starting around 50,500 years ago.

The findings suggest that early human and Neanderthal societies were interwoven to a degree where it was fairly common for them to encounter one another in their day-to-day lives. They’d meet around the watering hole, exchange a few laughs, have a few drinks, and then one thing would lead to another, and before you know it Neanderthal genes are appearing in about one out of every 20 human ancestors from that era.

Another study published in the journal Nature sequenced the genomes of what turned out to be a 45,000-year-old human family including a mother and a baby who both had Neanderthal ancestry tracing back 80 generations. This study added some nuance to our understanding of the relationship between early humans and Neanderthals, painting a picture of a long-standing relationship.

It’s a relationship so strong and ingrained within the human DNA that a lot of modern humans, especially those of Eurasian descent, still have Neanderthal DNA that influences a range of traits like stint skin pigmentation and even sleep patterns.