In May 2010, after years of intense discussions surrounding possible fossils of mixed Homo sapiens and Neanderthal descent floating around the scientific community, a team led by Svante Pääbo of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, published the results of their pioneering journey towards retrieving ancient Neanderthal DNA. The study sent out a shock wave: it discovered that our own DNA contains between 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, meaning our early modern human ancestors had indeed not only shaken hands with Neanderthals back in Ice Age Eurasia, but had also definitely shaken other body parts and interbred with them. The team's find not only pushed modern humans and the Neanderthals a lot closer together, but also paved the way for more ancient genetic research, which has since been shedding more light on the Neanderthal-Sapiens connection.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1092/the-neanderthal-sapiens-connection/.