Scientists say that if you aren’t African, you are part Neanderthal!

This fact is from a study done by Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal and his team at CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The say if your roots do not trace to Africa, south of the Sahara, you are part Neanderthal.

Neanderthals relocated from Africa about 400,000-800,000 years ago to present day Spain, France, Germany and Russia, evolving through the millennia. Their notable skills set includes a penchant for language, art, music and tool craftsmanship.

Labuda and his colleagues believe that most of the interbreeding between the Neanderthals and humans of the time took place in the Middle East, just about the same time modern humans started to migrate from Africa. They became extinct about 30,000 years ago or became absorbed into the modern human population. And the research did indeed point out that some of the human X chromosomes in people not linked to the African heritage trace their roots to the Neanderthals. The research began about 13 years ago when a sample of DNA known as a haplotype was identified in the human X chromosome. Come 2010 and sequencing of the Neanderthal genome was done, and it was established that the sequence is present in people from across the globe, save for those in sub-Saharan Africa and Australia.