The scientists initially focused on the DNA in the mitochondria which is small and particularly easy to retrieve. In 2008, they published the first fully decoded mitochondrial genome of a Neandertal.

On a clear day in Gibraltar, looking out of Gorham's Cave, you can see the rugged northern coast of Morocco looming purple above the turquoise sea. Inside the cave, quiet prevails, save for the ...

Neandertal babies had chests shaped like short, deep barrels and spines that curved inward more than those of humans, a build that until now was known only for Neandertal adults, researchers say.

Inspired by an earlier study that found associations between Neandertal DNA and disease risk, Janet Kelso at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany says her team got ...

Finding Neandertal ancestors in the human family tree was shocking enough when researchers announced it in 2010. Now the implications for modern-day people carrying surviving Neandertal DNA may prove ...

When Neandertals were first discovered nearly 170 years ago, the conceptual gap between their lineage and that of modern humans seemed vast. Initially scientists prejudicially believed that the ...

If your image of a Neandertal is of a crude, uncaring, brute, think again. Teeth and jaw fossils found last year in southeastern France not only reinforce perceptions about how our Neandertal ...

This press release is available in German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. An international research team has sequenced the Neandertal genome, using pill-sized samples of bone powder from three ...

Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in ...

Some 60,000 years ago, in a small limestone cave in central France, Neandertals dug a grave and laid an elderly member of their clan to rest. That’s the picture emerging from re-analysis of a site ...

Paleoanthropologists used to pray that they would unearth big troves of intact Neandertal skeletons and well-preserved artifacts that they could comb for clues to the origins of the human race. But ...