Did early humans mate with Neanderthals?

Neanderthals became extinct some 30,000 years ago, but, from about 35,000 years ago, another species was present in Europe. These were the Cro-Magnons, who were much more like modern humans than the short, broad-bodied Neanderthals.

The skeleton of a four-year-old child found in Lagar Velho in Portugal has a skull and teeth like those of modern humans but limbs more like a Neanderthal. Some paleoanthropologists believe this skeleton is a hybrid, evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and early humans.

Others believe it is a particularly robust specimen of a modern human child. CAT scans show that Neanderthals had a different inner ear structure from modern humans, and fragments of DNA recently extracted from Neanderthal fossils for the first time do not resemble the genetic make-up of any known modern Europeans. This suggests that the two species did not interbreed, although more genetic research is needed before a firm conclusion can be reached.

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