By Liz Fuller-Wright/Princeton University Ever since the first Neanderthal bones were discovered, people have wondered about these ancient hominins. How are they different from us? How much are they like us? Did our ancestors get along with them? Fight them? Love them? The recent discovery of a group called Denisovans, a Neanderthal-like group who populated Asia and Oceania, added its own set of questions. Now, an international team of geneticists and AI experts are adding whole new chapters to our shared hominin history. Under the leadership of Joshua Akey, a professor in Princeton’s Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, the researchers have found a history of genetic intermingling and exchange that suggests a much more intimate connection between these early human groups than previously believed. All About Neanderthals – The Surprising Facts Humans and Neanderthals Have More in Common than Polar and Brown Bears Genetic Exchange Between Neanderthals and Modern Humans “This is the first time that geneticists have identified multiple waves of modern human-Neanderthal admixture,” said Liming Li, a professor in the Department of Medical Genetics and Developmental Biology at Southeast University in Nanjing, China, who performed this work as an associate research scholar in Akey’s lab. Read moreSection: NewsEvolution & Human OriginsRead Later