Since then, researchers have discovered Neanderthals and Denisovans not only mated with each other, they also mated with modern humans. “When the Max Plank Institute [for Evolutionary Anthropology] began getting nuclear DNA sequenced data from Neanderthals, then it became very clear very quickly that modern humans carried some Neanderthal DNA,” says Alan R. Rogers, a professor of anthropology and biology at the University of Utah and lead author of the Science Advances paper. “That was a real turning point… It became widely accepted very quickly after that.”
