Human Interbreeding with Other Species: Offspring Only Lived Up to 5 Years
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The discovery of a fossil skull in Israel has revealed interbreeding between human species, specifically Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. This interspecies mating is now known to have occurred more than 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The fossil skull, belonging to a child approximately five years old, was found in Israel and analyzed by a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University and the National Centre for Scientific Research in France. The research team announced the results of the analysis as a major breakthrough for the scientific community.
This is because their findings represent the oldest evidence of interbreeding between humans and other hominin species.
The researchers state that the fossil skull, discovered 90 years ago in the Skhul Cave in Mount Carmel, is the oldest human fossil with characteristics of both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. This is the latest finding from various reports on evidence of interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals.
The research team from Tel Aviv and France has proven that the migration of modern human ancestors out of Africa occurred much earlier than previously estimated. The migration of Homo sapiens also occurred repeatedly over hundreds of years, rather than being a single major event.
In a study published in 2024, traces of Neanderthals were newly discovered in the DNA of Homo sapiens who lived within the last 50,000 years. This means that the group of Homo sapiens who interbred and whose child’s fossil was found in the Skhul Cave were not the ancestors of modern humans who spread throughout the world.
“Genetic studies in the last decade have shown that both groups exchanged genes,” said Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University. “To this day, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthal extinction, part of our genome, 2 to 6 percent, comes from Neanderthals. However, this exchange occurred much later, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. This fossil is 140,000 years old.”
Researchers state that the fossil is a descendant of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens parents because of its unique characteristics: the shape of the skull is round, resembling modern humans, with a jaw and ear structure similar to Neanderthals.
For information, Neanderthals are a hominin species that evolved in Europe and are believed to have migrated to the region that is now Israel around 70,000 years ago. However, Hershkovitz and his team have proven that Neanderthals lived in Israel as early as 400,000 years ago.
The two species then met at Nesher Ramla, an archaeological site in Israel, around 200,000 years ago. Some of them interbred with other species.
“The fossil we studied is the earliest evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens,” said Hershkovitz.
The remains of a child resulting from interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals were also found in Portugal in 1998. The skull, named the “Lapedo Valley child,” is 28,000 years old, 100,000 years younger than the child’s fossil from the Skhul Cave.