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A piece of bone that happened to be discovered on the shore of a Siberian river has provided the oldest modern human genome ever, revealing the first time that modern humans mated with prehistoric Neanderthal.

According to new research published in Nature, the identified bone belongs to a person who lived 45,000 years ago, certainly related to both modern and extinct Neanderthal breeds. This person's DNA shows that the two groups of people first mate with each other about 60,000 years ago.

Expert Chris Stringer from the Museum of Natural History in London, England, the head of the study, explained, the Siberian man mentioned above belongs to a community of people closely related to their ancestors. Europe and Asia today. He carries only a little more Neanderthal DNA than the modern European and Asians.

"However, on average, his Neanderthal genome segments are about three times as long as the Neanderthal genome fragments found in today's genomes. This provides a lot of information, due to the passages. Neanderthal DNA is gradually broken down through each generation, from the time of mating between two human species , " Mr. Stringer stressed.

Experts Stringer and his team have shown that rate of change up to the present time, when all living people, without African roots, own 2% of Neanderthal DNA in their DNA. Back in time, researchers could then see that the "relationship" between modern humans and Neanderthals occurred 7,000 - 10,000 years before the Siberian man appeared. This implies that it is no longer the "hybrid" between modern and Neanderthals that occurred 60,000 years ago.

A simple explanation was that the first modern man left Africa about 60,000 years ago. However, other findings were skeptical of this hypothesis. Anthropologists have discovered the 100,000-year-old skeletons of modern humans in the Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel.

Combining pieces of information together will lead to two possibilities: First, modern people leave Africa about 100,000 years ago, but not "settle down, become successful" for a long time. A group then left Africa nearly 60,000 years ago and built successful settlements. This group led to the birth of all those without African roots today.

Second, modern people left Africa 100,000 years ago and succeeded. The members of this group took a short time to disperse everywhere, with a wave of migration approaching southern Asia before 75,000 years ago, then finally arriving in Australia and New Guinea. . Then, a second wave of migration about 60,000 years ago brought the ancestors of Native Americans and modern Asian - Europeans out of Africa.

So what possibility really happened? The Siberian man brought a clue to authenticate the hypotheses and pointed out that it is unlikely that mating between modern and Neanderthals will happen before 60,000 years ago.

According to expert Stringer, although it is still possible that modern people migrated to southern Asia before 60,000 years ago, those people could not have made a significant contribution to modern living communities. remains outside Africa, which contains evidence of crossbreeding between two human breeds.