Humans and Neanderthals Branched off 600,000 years ago Due to an Incompatible Y Chromosome

Neanderthals and humans branched off about 600,000 years ago, possibly because of genetic incompatibility in the context of the Y chromosome, a team of researchers has announced.

There was some interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals around 100,000 to 60,000 years ago, previous research has shown.

The latest research speculates that male children conceived between a Homo sapien woman and a Neanderthal man would have resulted in miscarriage, an article in New Scientist says. The research posits that the most recent common ancestor between humans and Neanderthals lived around 590,000 years ago. This time frame is compatible with other researchers’ estimates.

A model of an adult Neanderthal male head and shoulders on display in the Hall of Human Origins in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. (CC BY SA 2.0)