Late European Neanderthals were healthy, new DNA analysis reveals

Recent DNA analysis suggests late European Neanderthals were healthy and reproducing normally, contradicting previous assumptions of fragmentation and decline. The genetic data from some of the last Neanderthals in Western Europe indicates a healthy population, not fragmented or struggling to survive. This challenges earlier findings about the species. This new research, published in Nature, provides a high-quality genome of a female Neanderthal and offers a more complex view of their extinction, which occurred around 40,000 years ago.