Study shows Neanderthals liked to keep it in the family

Neanderthals liked to be close to their families very close, a genetic study has shown.

DNA from a Neanderthal woman’s 50,000-year-old toe bone shows she was highly inbred.

Scientists discovered that her parents were either half-siblings who shared the same mother, an uncle and niece, an aunt and nephew, or a grandparent and grandchild.

Alternatively, they may have been double first cousins offspring of two siblings and their siblings. The inbreeding may have been the result of Neanderthal population groups being very small, experts believe.

Analysis of the DNA also revealed evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals, Denisovans a Neanderthal sister group from Siberia and early modern humans.

Neanderthals were a human sub-species who lived alongside our own ancestors in Eurasia for thousands of years before vanishing about 30,000 years ago.

Although like early modern humans they made tools and weapons, their lack of inventiveness and social structure may have led to their demise.