Evidence from bone fragments in a cave near Beijing, China adds evidence that modern humans  interbred with earlier human species such as Neanderthals.     

U.S. paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus, from the Department of Anthropology at the Washington University, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., and other collaborators, found an early modern human that lived about 42,000 to 39,000 years ago. It has features that show up only in Homo sapiens, modern humans, but also has other features that are characteristic of other species of now-extinct humans, such as Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).

They contend that such evidence shows that modern Man interbred with other human species that they encountered in Europe and Asia as they journeyed across the Earth.

Thirty-four bone fragments were found in Tianyuan Cave, which is located near Beijing, China.

Evidence of this kind is controversial because current theory—sometimes popularized as the Out-of-Africa theory—states that modern humans evolved in East Africa and then spread over the Earth around 70,000 years ago. These humans replaced earlier species of Man, without the use, or at least with very little use, of interbreeding.

Such research into H. sapiens and other species of Man shows little or not interbreeding. However, the movement and activities of early modern humans is still not well understood by anthropologists.

Neandertals were big boned, heavy browed humans, now extinct, that lived in Europe and parts of Asia for about 200,000 years. No fossil records have been found of them as of about 28,000 years ago.

Modern humans are classified as Homo sapiens sapiens. It is the only existing subspecies of the Homo sapiens species. The other one is Homo sapiens idaltu, which is extinct.

The paper published by Trinkaus and his co-authers is found in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Genetics  Research  Science  William Atkins