Neanderthals left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago and settled in what we now know as France, Spain, Germany and Russia where they evolved over millennia. They possessed the gene for language and music as well as art and tool craftsmanship skills. It is therefore possible that humans of the time found them to be interesting, if not attractive.
Labuda and his team believe that most of the interbreeding between the two groups happened in the Middle East, during the time modern humans started to migrate out of Africa. About 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals became extinct or were absorbed into the modern human population. "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," Labuda said.
The research clearly indicates that some of the human X chromosomes in people with non-African heritage originate from the Neanderthals. This research project started almost thirteen years ago when a piece of DNA called a haplotype was identified in the human X chromosome. In 2010 the Neanderthal genome was sequenced, and it was found that the sequence was present in people all across the world, except in sub-Saharan Africa and Australia.
