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Bodies of Evidence

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Hybrid skeleton

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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