![[Neanderthal_Flintworkers_(Knight,_1920).jpg]] In the past, it had been believed that these earlier "species" in the genus _Homo_ were primitive "Cave Men", and were only distantly related to us. New discoveries have recently been made by archaeologists, who have found that the tools used by Neanderthals were very similar to those used by neighboring _H. sapiens_. And in just the last ten years, the idea has been shattered that these people were from different species. Geneticists such as [Svante Pääbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_P%C3%A4%C3%A4bo) and [David Reich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reich_(geneticist)) have proven that Denisovans and Neanderthals mated with _H. sapiens_ and contributed to the modern human genome. Nearly all people whose ancestors were not sub-Saharan Africans got about 2% of their genes from Neanderthals. Personally, as someone descended from Mediterranean Europeans, I'm pretty happy about this! (Here's a link to a nearly two-hour-long recent interview that geneticist and author David Reich gave to a podcaster this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6skZIxPuI&t=1240s) ---- Next: [[1.5.- Ice Ages]] Back: [[1.3 - Early Humans]]