The Dawn of Neanderthal Genomics

And the Neanderthal data will shed light on what DNA changes helped produce modern humanity by revealing which changes appeared relatively late in human evolution, after the ancestors of Neanderthal and of humans split apart, scientists said.
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The two teams basically agree, within their margins of error, that the evolutionary lineages of Neanderthals and modern humans split somewhere around 500,000 years ago, he said. That number had been suggested by far more limited DNA analysis before, so it's comforting to see it backed up with more extensive analyses, he said.

Modern humans probably wiped out Neanderthal with superior violence. Violence is our species signature, after all.

Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans coexisted in Europe for thousands of years, until Neanderthals died out some 28,000 years ago. Scientists have been debating whether the two groups interbred and whether modern humans carry some genetic remnants of Neanderthals.

If they interbed maybe it was trough rape. Another species signature.
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Paabo's analysis didn't directly address whether modern humans have DNA from Neanderthals, but it did raise speculation that DNA from anatomically modern humans might have found its way into Neanderthals. Scientists will have to examine more Neanderthal DNA to study that, he said.

It's so Cain and Abel.

Don't forget, Neanderthal is the most successful human species to ever live. We'll probably never last that long.
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