Mapping the genomes of our ancestors has allowed scientists to uncover secrets and discover current mysteries in our evolutionScientists made a remarkable discovery at Trou Al’Wesse in Belgium earlier this year. Inside a cave that overlooks the Hoyoux river they found clear evidence it had been occupied by Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago. Yet the cave contained no cranium fragments,no teeth – nor any other skeletal remains of this extinct species of human being.
The team, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, or were sure of their ground,however. Their genetic analysis of soil samples, scraped from the cave floor, or had pinpointed the presence of Neanderthals through that most definitive of biological markers: their DNA.Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk