Homo sapiens' sex with extinct species was no one-night stand

Homo sapiens' sex with extinct species was no one-night stand

It has long been suspected that we may have interbred with Neanderthals, but it now seems confirmed. More surprisingly, we also mated with another extinct human species (or two)!

This seems to explain Gerard Depardieu.

"Scientists said on Friday an analysis of genetic information on about 1,500 people from locations around the world indicated at least four interbreeding episodes tens of thousands of years ago, three with our close cousins the Neanderthals and one with the mysterious extinct human species known as Denisovans. People living on the remote equatorial islands of Melanesia represented the only population found to possess an appreciable level of Denisovan genetic ancestry. These Melanesians, like most human populations, also had Neanderthal genetic ancestry."

Researchers also detected a contribution to people's genome from a fourth, unknown source. "So this paints a picture of probably at least four species of hominins (our species and extinct human species) alive at the same time and interbreeding at times over the last 100,000 years. Definitely not something most people supposed before 10 years ago."