The Interbreeding Happened Infrequently
We’re not even talking about the distant past here. According to a study published in the journal Nature in 2015, Oase 1’s Neanderthal ancestors lived barely four to six generations ago. Pääbo reasoned that if interbreeding between species had only happened infrequently, finds like this should be rare.
The Interbreeding Happened Infrequently
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They Got Mixed
On top of that, the study from the Max Planck Institute noticed something else about Denny. Apparently, the teenager’s father also had Neanderthal DNA combined with his Denisovan genes. And that’s incredibly revealing. According to Pääbo, “It suggests that these groups, when they met, mixed quite freely with each other.”
They Got Mixed
