A preference for pairings between male Neanderthals and female Homo sapiens may answer the question of why there are "Neanderthal deserts" in human chromosomes.

Perhaps human females found Neanderthal males to be high-status providers. Or perhaps Neanderthal society was “patrilocal” — meaning women moved to join the man’s family — while human society was the ...

Geneticists have a better understanding of how prehistoric pairings unfolded, with new research suggesting they were mostly between male Neanderthals and female humans.

By now, it’s firmly established that modern humans and their Neanderthal relatives met and mated as our ancestors expanded ...

The findings may reveal new insights into early human mating preferences ...

Thin stretches of the human X chromosome look oddly empty when you scan for Neanderthal DNA. Geneticists even have a name for the gaps: “Neanderthal deserts.

Analysis of Neanderthal DNA revealed that the male Neanderthals regularly bred with female Homo sapiens, but this ...

The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) fascinate researchers and the general public alike. They remain central to debates about the nature of the genus Homo (the broad biological classification that ...

New research on the inner ear morphology of Neanderthals and their ancestors challenges the widely accepted theory that Neanderthals originated after an evolutionary event that implied the loss of ...

Archaeologists have long debated the origin of human symbolic behavior. The dominant idea was that only modern humans (Homo sapiens) were capable of complex symbolic thought and behavior; such as ...

Deep inside a cave in central Spain, Neanderthals repeatedly carried horned and antlered skulls of large herbivores, stripped them of flesh, and arranged them near fires over what appears to be ...