We once speculated on the reasons that the Neanderthals died out, and came up with plenty of possibilities. Maybe modern humans killed them off for their territory, or they were wiped out by diseases brought in my modern humans, or they just couldn't compete for resources. Then we found out by genetic studies that homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, and now most of us carry around a little Neanderthal DNA.
More precise studies are now possible because we have decoded the genome of some actual Neanderthal remains. These show that Neanderthals that lived hundred of thousands of years ago already carried a chunk of homo sapiens DNA, even more than the traces of Neanderthal DNA we have now. The studies suggest that interbreeding between the two peoples began as far back as 250,000 years ago. The implication is that maybe Neanderthals didn't disappear because of some calamity. Considering their population numbers compared to homo sapiens over time, they may have merely been absorbed into modern human communities until their genome was diminished to the fraction that we carry today. Read how the research points to this possibility at Live Science. -via Strange Company
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Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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This reminds me of the talk of how many descendants Genghis Khan has. Just because you are a descendant doesn't mean you carry his DNA. After x generations, you officially have x2 ancestors (although some may be repeats), but you only have so many genes. After x generations, there will be one or more ancestors that you carry no genes at all from.
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Seems very likely.
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