Sex may be the reason for the extinction of neanderthals

Making love, not war, may have contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals, according to an article in PalaeoAnthropology this week.

According to the study, Homo sapiens may have been responsible for the extinction of Neanderthals not through violence, but through sex.

Research indicates that Neanderthals surrendered from the moment they interbred with our ancestors, Homo sapiens.

About 2% of the human genome is derived from Neanderthals, but there is still little scientific evidence as to how this transfer of genetic material occurred.

Chris Stringer, one of the study’s authors, explained that “our knowledge of the interaction between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals has become more complex in recent years, but it is still rare to see a scientific discussion of how intergroup interbreeding actually occurred.” Researcher at the History Museum, born in London.

So far, 32 Neanderthal genomes have been sequenced. This small amount prevents the researchers from being conclusive, because a lack of Homo sapiens DNA in the Neanderthal genome may be related to lower sampling. But the results so far allow us to put forward some hypotheses.

“We suggest that this behavior could have led to the extinction of Neanderthals if they regularly interbred with Homo sapiens, possibly eroding their numbers until they disappeared,” Stringer said.

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens evolved in different regions of the world. The first is found across Europe and Asia, reaching as far south as Siberia, about 600,000 years ago.

Regarding our ancestors, they are believed to be either direct descendants of a group of ancient African humans or the result of admixture between different groups scattered across the continent.

Genetic data indicates that the two species first met when Homo sapiens began to migrate through Africa, about 250,000 years ago.

According to the study, this meeting had barriers, such as the language, appearance, and behavior of each one.

But the researchers believe that these contacts eventually led to breeding between the two species. How this happened remains to be discovered.