A study by Professor Ella Been and Dr. Omry Barzilai sheds new light on the burial practices of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals in the Levant region during the Middle Paleolithic, revealing both similarities and differences in how these two species treated their dead.
This study uses ecological niche modeling to reconstruct the palaeodistribution of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans during Marine Isotope Stage 5, identifying the Zagros Mountains as a potential contact and interbreeding zone.
Analysis of dozens of ancient genomes reveals that close encounters between Neanderthals and humans took place in a narrow time window. The high-resolution analysis also allowed the authors to track when certain Neanderthal DNA sequences appeared in the H. sapiens genome and determine whether they were retained.
