There is what you might call a “human interest” story in today’s WaPo and it’s sort of challenging in a way.

Modern Man, Neanderthals Seen as Kindred Spirits

Researchers have long debated what happened when the indigenous Neanderthals of Europe met "modern humans" arriving from Africa starting some 40,000 years ago. The end result was the disappearance of the Neanderthals, but what happened during the roughly 10,000 years that the two human species shared a land?

A new review of the fossil record from that period has come up with a provocative conclusion: The two groups saw each other as kindred spirits and, when conditions were right, they mated.

That’s right – it’s a soft porn story like those Danish and German nudist films some theaters used to show during the late 60s and early 70s. Filled with pretty, shapely blondes and redheads sunning themselves on beaches and joyfully playing volleyball on sweet green grass.

No, wait, that’s wrong. It’s really a serious scientific story, because for a long time scientists believed Homo Neanderthalensis just sort of died out, supposedly a weaker second cousin without the genetic materials and intelligence to successfully react to the stresses of modern life like creating your own fire and learning to form your own stone tools, although neither of those legends appear to be accurate.

In his latest work, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [Eric] Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis, analyzed prehistoric fossil remains from various parts of Europe. He concluded that a significant number have attributes associated with both Neanderthals and the modern humans who replaced them.

"Given the data we now have, it would be highly improbable to argue there is no Neanderthal contribution to the early European population that came out of Africa," Trinkaus said. "I believe there was continuous breeding between the two for some period of time.

The “assimilation” theory, also called the “admixture” theory, seems more logical, since the idea of disorganized groups or clans of the two different types fighting a war of extinction just seems too complicated. There are no recognized examples of known Neanderthal genes residing in modern humans of European extraction but one can still find prime examples of this body structure in isolated parts of Northeastern Europe and Central Asia, which adds to the assimilation theory.

Some geneticists see residual genetic traits in modern humans that they believe originated with the Neanderthals, speculating that perhaps 10 to 20% of our present day genome was delivered by them through interbreeding.

While Homo Neanderthalensis has been traditionally associated with dull, brutish behavior and weak minds, this is not believed to be true. Despite differences in skull shape, scientists point to the relatively similar brain sizes to show similar levels of intelligence. [ed: Please. No Freeper jokes.]

So, where did they go? It’s believed that they were just outnumbered, and outbred, falling by the wayside in the competition for resources like food and shelter.