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Some 350,000 or more years ago, the group of hominins that would evolve to become Neanderthals and Denisovans left Africa for Eurasia.
A few hundred millennia later, about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern non-Africans followed a similar path out of Africa and began interbreeding with these other hominin groups. Researchers estimate that much of the Neanderthal DNA in modern human genomes came from interbreeding events that took place around 50,000 to 55,000 years ago in the Middle East. Thousands of years later, humans moving into East Asia interbred with Denisovans.
The 50,000- to 65,000-year-old remains of a Neanderthal in Vindija Cave, Croatia, gave researchers their first look at the Neanderthal genetic code.
The genome of a 40,000-year-old human whose remains were unearthed in Romania harbored 6–9 percent Neanderthal DNA.
Teeth dating to some 80,000 years ago yield DNA from a Denisovan individual ...
