Our Various Ancestors

For John, BLUF:  Why doesn't this come up on 23 and Me or Ancestory dot Com?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

NO ONE CAN RESIST US SWEET, SEXY HOMO SAPIENS

Here is the referenced headline, with link:

Neanderthals and Humans Were Hooking Up Way More Than Anyone Thought.

Posted by Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, the article is from Live Science, written by Contributor Charles Q. Choi, 29 November 2018.

Here is the lede plus:

Way more sex happened between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans across Europe and Asia than scientists originally thought, a new study finds.

Scientists initially thought that interbreeding among the two groups was more isolated to a particular place and time — specifically, when they encountered each other in western Eurasia shortly after modern humans left Africa. This idea stemmed from the fact that the genomes of modern humans from outside Africa are only about 2 percent Neanderthal, on average.

Subsequent research, however, has found that Neanderthal ancestry is 12 to 20 percent higher in modern East Asians compared to modern Europeans. . . .

This scenario of multiple episodes of interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals fits in with the emerging view that various human lineages had complex and frequent interactions. For example, recent work found the mysterious human lineage known as the Denisovans apparently contributed to the modern human gene pool at least twice, leaving behind two distinct genetic component — one mostly in Papuan and Australian aboriginal populations, the other primarily in East Asian populations.

We probably aren't really who we think we are.  The question is, were we fun loving or just aggressive, or taken advantage of?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff