The Basques And The Neanderthals
Everyone other than sub-Saharan Africans has 1.5% - 2% DNA from the Neanderthals, but the last Neanderthals are said to have died off around 20,000 years ago. Instead of Neanderthal DNA, some Australasians get 3% of their DNA from the Denisovans, a genetic cousin of the Neanderthals that is thought to have died off around 50,000 years ago. Homosapiens and Neanderthals share a common ancester called Homo Heidelbergensis who emerged from the genetic bottleneck 800,000 years ago as the dominant form of man in Africa. Heidelbergensis was basically like modern man but gigantic, like the tallest basketball players are today. The Neanderthals evolved from a group of Heidelbergensis that got cut off in Europe during a glacial period, and about 450,000 years ago they evolved some kind of dwarfism, making Neanderthals dwarf giants. The Neanderthals had to survive through multiple ice age cycles that lasted 100,000 years, and warm periods that lasted 10,000 ...