Scientists Make Wild New Claim That Neanderthals Never Truly Went Extinct (And It Explains A Lot)

I feel like over the last few years we've seen a startling surge in stupidity.

Maybe the Internet is to blame, maybe it's just doing a better job of shining a light on it all. Still, it has all gotten me thinking one thing: maybe the Neanderthals never truly went extinct, and they still sort of walk among us.

Well, some experts seem to agree, though they came to this conclusion more scientifically.

I just noticed an increase in obnoxious behavior on planes, and had someone tell me that Young Sheldon was funny.

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According to Daily Mail, scientists in Italy and Switzerland say that the human ancestors never went extinct in the traditional sense. Instead, they mated with Homo sapiens (that's us modern folk), and this led to "genetic assimilation."

New research suggest that Neanderthals never went extinct in the traditional sense. (Getty Images)

"Our results highlight genetic admixture as a possible key mechanism driving their disappearance," the researchers said. "Neanderthal disappearance rather than a true extinction might be conceived as the result of genetic dilution."

So, you mean to tell me we might all have a little Neanderthal in us because somewhere down the line one of our ancestors hooked up with a Neanderthal after they noticed each other from across the bar (or, more likely, cave)?

I mean, it does explain my habit of answering questions with grunts and my insatiable urge to hunt a woolly mammoth…

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While this claim that Neanderthals never truly went extinct and instead "genetically assimilated" with us Homo Sapiens is new, the fact that humans mated with them has been known for quite some time.

That's believed to have happened around 50,500 to 43,500 years ago, thousands of years after the two species crossed paths in Europe.

In fact, most non–Africans can reportedly trace around 1 to 2% of their ancestry back to Neanderthals.

And for people who leave shopping carts in grocery store parking lots and enjoy the Transformers movies, that percentage may even be a bit higher.

"Our results highlight genetic admixture as a possible key mechanism driving their disappearance," the researchers said. "Genetic admixture can provide another robust explanation for the observed Neanderthal demise, but does not exclude that other factors may have played a substantial role in the disappearance of Neanderthals."

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