Did Neanderthals and Homo sapiens live together?

(Images credit: J. F. Horrabin, public domain /Wiki Commons)

Question from Amelia Holloway

Our cousins, Homo neanderthalensis, lived between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago. Like us, they came from Africa, but by the time modern humans first appeared around 200,000 years ago, they had already moved to Europe. Modern humans didn’t follow them north until around 45,000 years ago and, within 5,000 years, the Neanderthals had all but disappeared. However, genetic evidence suggests that this short overlap gave our two species enough time to interbreed


Answered by Laura Mears for Brain Dump in How It Works issue 110.

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