A surprising amount of genetic diversity characterized Neandertals, the Stone Age species with a disputed place in human evolution, a research team reports. The new finding stems from a small piece of DNA recovered from a 100,000-year-old Neandertal tooth previously found at the Scladina cave in Belgium.
Until now, DNA has been retrieved from Neandertal fossils dating to no more than 42,000 years ago (SN: 5/17/03, p.
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