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    This Skull Might Reveal Where Humans First Had Sex With Neanderthals

    Is this where your tiny bit of Neanderthal DNA comes from?

    This skull found in a cave in northern Israel tells us, for the first time, that modern humans lived in that area 55,000 years ago.

    Manot is the best candidate for the interbreeding of modern humans with Neanderthals and there is really no other candidate. The people at Manot cave are the only population we know of that shared the same geographical region for a very long period of time.

    The expansion of modern humans from Africa between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago is a hugely important event in human evolution.

    Manot might represent some of the elusive first migrants in the hypothesised out-of-Africa event about 60,000 years ago, a population whose descendants ultimately spread right across Asia, and also into Europe. Its discovery raises hopes of more complete specimens from this critical region and time period.