Humans and Neanderthals cozied up from time to time when they lived in the same areas tens of thousands of years ago.

The human genome is a rich, complex record of migration, encounters, and inheritance written over thousands of millennia.

FILE: Reconstructions of a Neanderthal man, left, and woman at the Neanderthal museum in Mettmann, Germany, March 2009 ...

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

When the two species got together tens of thousands of years ago, the hookups may have often involved a male Neanderthal and a female human, according to a new study. The findings, described February ...

But the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, shows “that whenever Neanderthals and modern humans have mated, ...

When Homo sapiens trekked out of Africa, our species encountered Neanderthal populations already inhabiting the vast expanses of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. As the presence of Neanderthal DNA in ...

When ancient humans interbred, new research shows that the pairings were predominantly male Neanderthals and female Homo ...

Most people alive today carry fragments of Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Now scientists are gaining a more intimate ...

A 2026 study finds sex-biased interbreeding, not genetic incompatibility, likely explains why Neanderthal DNA is scarce on the human X chromosome.

New research reveals that ancient interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals shaped our modern human DNA - especially on the X chromosome.

Geneticists have found an interesting pattern in how early humans and Neanderthals interbred—and it wasn't balanced.