alt Hacker NewsDid they really die out, or did the population just merge with modern humans? Most people on the planet have some Neanderthal DNA, so clearly there was some intermixing. If modern humans were a much larger population, it makes sense that the Neanderthals only contributed a small amount of DNA to the gene pool. I could imagine that they were just slowly absorbed into the much larger Sapiens population.
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>Did they really die out, or did the population just merge with modern humans.
Most populations die out. Most sapiens. Most neanderthals. Most everything. The chance of becoming an ancestor is very, very low.
Neanderthals were not slowly observed. Most of our neanderthal DNA comes from a single mixing event/period.
Evolutionary history is a history of bottlenecks. Small populations that survive and become large populations. The rest don't make it.
>> Did they really die out
There are a few still. One made it to President of the USA.
In Africa most people don't have Neanderthal DNA however in Europe probably everyone has. (I have no idea about Asia, maybe somebody can chip in)
I think they probably mixed in and we just became one, sort of