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

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 opposite. If human women were more likely to wander into Neanderthal camps and stay there, their genes would show up exactly where Platt found them.

For years, geneticists have wrestled with a curious absence: many modern people carry Neanderthal DNA, yet large stretches of the human X chromosome are almost empty of it. A new study argues that this pattern may not be a story of “bad” genes being purged,

Neanderthals, the closest cousins of modern humans, lived in parts of Europe and Asia until their extinction some 30,000 years ago. Genetic studies are revealing ever more about the links between modern humans and these long-gone relatives – most ...

The human genetic blueprint is deceptively simple. Our genes are tightly wound into 46 X-shaped structures called chromosomes. Crafted by evolution, they carry DNA and replicate when cells divide, ensuring the stability of our genome over generations.

The 2010 discovery that early humans and Neanderthals once encountered one another and had babies was a scientific bombshell that electrified the field of human origins. Now, geneticists at the University of Pennsylvania say they have a better understanding of the nature of those prehistoric hookups,