To this day, there are people carrying genetic material from at least two different populations of Neanderthals, which one analysis suggests interbred with humans several times in both Europe and Asia. Hidden in the genomes of present-day populations, there are tell-tale signs that it happened on many separate occasions and across a wide geographical area. Since then, the evidence that sex between early modern humans and Neanderthals was not a rare event has been mounting up. Scientists have not yet been able to extract DNA from these remains, but like the jawbone, it’s thought that they may have belonged to someone who had recent Neanderthal ancestry. In addition to the jawbone, the team found skull fragments from another individual at Peştera cu Oase, who possessed a similar mixture of features. They determined that the liaison probably occurred fewer than 200 years before the time he lived. This is the highest concentration ever encountered in an early modern human, and around three times the amount found in present-day Europeans and Asians, whose genetic makeup is roughly 1-3% Neanderthal.īecause the genome contained large stretches of uninterrupted Neanderthal sequences, the authors calculated that the jaw’s owner is likely to have had a Neanderthal ancestor as recently as four to six generations ago – equivalent to a great-great-grandparent, great-great-great-grandparent or great-great-great-great grandparent. When scientists analysed DNA extracted from the find in 2015, they found that the individual was male, and likely to have been 6-9% Neanderthal. At the time, scientists noticed that – while the jawbone was unmistakeably modern in its appearance, it also contained some unusual, Neanderthal-like features. The remains are thought to have washed inside the cave naturally and lain undisturbed ever since. Resting on the surface among them was a human jawbone, which radiocarbon dating revealed to be from one of the oldest known early modern humans in Europe.Īs we head towards the end of another extraordinary year, BBC Future is taking a look back at some of our favourite stories for our “Best of 2021” collection. Over its long history, it’s thought to have primarily been inhabited by male cave bears – extinct relatives of the brown bear – to which they largely belong. Inside the Peştera cu Oase, or "Cave with Bones", they found thousands of mammalian bones. Then came a scuba dive for 30m (98ft) along an underwater passage, followed by a 300-metre (984ft) ascent up to the poarta, or “mouse hole” – an opening through which they entered a previously unknown chamber. First they waded neck-deep in an underground river for 200m (656ft). Around 37,000-42,000 years later, in February 2002, two explorers made an extraordinary discovery in an underground cave system in the southwestern Carpathian mountains, near the Romanian town of Anina.Įven getting there was no easy task. While we will never know what really happened in this encounter – or others like it – what we can be sure of is that such a couple did get together. It’s even been suggested, too, that such hook-ups weren’t consensual.
Maybe their relationship was of the casual, pragmatic kind, because there just weren’t many people around at the time. Perhaps the woman was actually the Neanderthal and the man belonged to our own species. Of course, it could have been far less like a scene from a steamy romance novel. They had an awkward laugh and, well, we can all guess what happened next. Luckily for him, they didn’t speak the same language.
He cleared his throat, looked her up and down, and – in an absurdly high-pitched, nasal voice – deployed his best chat-up line. She had dark skin, long legs, and her hair was worn in braids. She was an early modern human, clad in an animal-skin coat with a wolf-fur trim. Around one of his thick, muscular biceps he wore bracelet of eagle-talons. He had good posture and pale skin, perhaps reddened slightly with sunburn. He was a Neanderthal, and stark naked apart from a fur cape. Their eyes met across the rugged mountain landscape of prehistoric Romania. As we end another extraordinary year and start a new one, BBC Future is taking a look back at some of our favourite stories for our "Best of 2021" collection.