People of non-African heritage are part Neanderthal, according to a 2011 study in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The study is the first to suggest confirmation of human-Neanderthal interbreeding. Although Neanderthals are believed to have gone extinct or to have been absorbed into the human population by about 28,000 BC, it is believed that they interbred with humans sometime between 78,000 BC and 43,000 BC as humans started to migrate out of Africa.
More facts about Neanderthals:
- Despite the image of the dumb caveman dragging a club, Neanderthals were not all that different from humans at that time. They had the gene for language, and had music and art and were capable of sophisticated craftsmanship.
- The Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010. Neanderthal genes were then found to be much closer to the genes of modern Eurasians than people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Neanderthal genome in general was found to be extremely similar to the modern human genome.
- About 1-4 percent of Eurasian people's genome is believed to come from Neanderthals.