Scientists are showing Neanderthals some love. This is new, and required them to overcome some unscientific prejudices. It was only a few years ago that many anthropologists insisted that Neanderthals can’t possibly have contributed to human ancestry because they were too ugly to appeal sexually to their modern human contemporaries.
Wrong. DNA evidence showed six years ago that many ancestors of modern humans made love with Neanderthals. (And happy Valentine’s Day to you too.) Scientists now know in some detail how sex with Homo neanderthalensis contributed to the gene pool of today’s Homo sapiens.
