Are Neanderthals extinct or evolved?

According to previous research results, about 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals quickly disappeared in the whole European continent. The oldest Neanderthals can be traced back to about10 ~150 thousand years ago. Many anthropologists believe that the disappearance of Neanderthals was caused by Homo sapiens, the ancestor of modern people.

However, the latest research shows that researchers have found it in the DNA of modern humans, and it exists in the well-preserved female remains of ancient Neanderthals, that is, Siberian caves; Research shows that this woman was 6.5438+10,000 years ago, and she already has the chromosome of modern people. Further research shows that Neanderthals began to integrate with modern people very early.

The following excerpt is from the BBC scientific research report IC Crossover happened 100000 years ago.

This means that we crossed with our thick-browed, stout and now extinct relatives much earlier than we thought. Previous studies have shown that the two species first mixed about 60,000 years ago, when humans migrated from Africa and began to spread around the world. When they left the European continent, they met Neanderthals living in Europe and Asia and merged with them.

But the discovery that hybridization occurred tens of thousands of years ago shows that some early humans left Africa before the crowd. However, the environment behind the encounter between these early species is still unclear, and it is not known whether they were chosen or forced.

The researchers tracked the changes of ancient human culture and social form in western Eurasia in the past10.2 million years through archaeological data. In the last ice age, the land use patterns of Neanderthals and modern ancestors changed, and they began to communicate and mate with each other. During this period, they not only exchanged genes, but also influenced each other culturally, and because Neanderthals only lived in the western part of Eurasia, they became extinct as a small population. However, the Neanderthal genes carried by some hybrids did not disappear, but were preserved.

Recent research on the DNA sequence of ancient Neanderthals shows that 1~4% of our modern genes come from Neanderthals, especially the descendants of Europeans. Although Neanderthals have disappeared as an independent race, they still "live" in our genes.