{"id":358710,"date":"2026-02-27T07:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/358710\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T07:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:44:11","slug":"the-sex-lives-of-neanderthal-males-and-human-females-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/358710\/","title":{"rendered":"The sex lives of Neanderthal males – and human females | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dating out of your league? New research says it’s a tale as old as time.<\/p>\n

A study out Thursday in Science argues that Neanderthal men and human women were particularly inclined to mate, a sexual habit that offers insight into the evolution of the modern human genome.<\/p>\n

In 2010 scientists reconstructed the Neanderthal genome — blockbuster research that allowed for analysis making clear that the species interbred.<\/p>\n

Most people living today have some residual fragments of DNA from our ancient evolutionary cousins.<\/p>\n

Research indicates both groups descended from a population living in Africa some million years ago.<\/p>\n

They eventually diverged, with anatomically modern humans evolving in Africa, and Neanderthals migrating across Eurasia.<\/p>\n

But over hundreds of millennia, human migrations resulted in interbreeding, researchers say.<\/p>\n

Yet humans have little to no Neanderthal DNA on our X chromosomes — one of two human chromosomes that determines an embryo’s sex.<\/p>\n

That was assumed to be the result of a natural selection.<\/p>\n

The genes were biologically “toxic” to humans, researchers hypothesized, and eventually purged out — in essence, the children who inherited those traits might not have lived to pass them on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


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But the new study from geneticists at the University of Pennsylvania suggests the phenomenon has more social origins, and were actually the result of “long-standing mating preferences.”<\/p>\n

The team analyzed modern human DNA preserved in Neanderthals, and found an abundance on the X chromosome — the mirror opposite of humans.<\/p>\n

That result allowed them to rule out that reproduction between the species was incompatible.<\/p>\n

Instead the gene flow “occurred predominantly between Neanderthal males and anatomically modern human females,” said Alexander Platt, a senior research scientist on the study.<\/p>\n

Females carry two X chromosomes, and males carry one. Therefore, if Neanderthal males and modern human females were mating more frequently, more human X chromosomes would enter the Neanderthal gene pool — and fewer Neanderthal X chromosomes would end up in human populations.<\/p>\n

Researchers said that sex-biased migration could also offer clues. But ancient mating habits “provided the simplest explanation,” Platt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The larger “why” is unknown: Neanderthal men and modern human women might have been mating by choice, or violence and coercion could have been involved.<\/p>\n

Researchers say they now hope to analyze the development of this mating pattern.<\/p>\n

Possibilities include probing gender dynamics within Neanderthal society, or migration habits — perhaps males were likely to leave their societies while females stayed with their families, for example.<\/p>\n

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