For much of our history, we coexisted with other members of our genus, and our prehistoric ancestors didn’t waste the opportunity to hook up with their Neanderthal and Denisovan relatives.
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Reviewing all the existing data on archaic human introgression into the modern human genome, the authors of a new study explain that because Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa in waves, different populations of humans ended up mating with Neanderthals in different regions of Eurasia. As a result, those of us alive today display a complex patchwork of introgressed sequences inherited from this now extinct lineage.
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Looking at how these archaic genes actually affect us, the study authors explain that our Neanderthal DNA may have increased the size of our noses while our Denisovan heritage is associated with the width of our lips. This conclusion builds on previous studies which indicated that the Denisovans probably had narrower mouths than the average modern human.
