By sequencing the genomes of dozens of people who lived between 120,000 and 20,000 years ago, researchers found that Neanderthals had a rare blood group that could have been fatal to their newborns.

“Blood group systems were not known in Neanderthals and Denisovans,” Condemi says. Blood analysis is a unique tool, albeit one that needs a larger dataset of ancient genes to reach its full ...

Illustration of a white blood cell engulfing a bacterium. Our Neanderthal DNA may reduce our body's ability to fight infections in this way. Hank Grebe/Getty ...

The lack of variety in blood type within Neanderthals may have led them to their demise. While H. sapiens had wider diversity in blood types, which may have given them the immune system arsenal ...

When modern humans journeyed out of Africa, a rapid evolution in their red blood cells may have helped them survive — but it may have also led to the eventual disappearance of Neanderthals, a new ...

"Blood groups of Neandertals and Denisova decrypted." PLOS One . 2021. " A parsimonious neutral model suggests Neanderthal replacement was determined by migration and random species drift ." ...

Was blood a factor in the demise of the Neanderthals? New research is showing that Homo sapiens underwent huge changes in their blood groups after leaving Africa, between 70,000 and 45,000 years ...

For this research, the team sequenced the genes of three groups of hominids: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens. Their goal was to study the antigens present on the surface of red blood cells, ...

Sometime between 135,000-50,000 years ago, hands slick with animal blood carried more than 35 huge horned heads into a small, ... Neanderthals carried slightly different versions of these genes.

The Neanderthal to whom the tooth belonged was probably a carnivore. Other chemical tracers indicate that this individual did not consume the blood of their prey, but ate the bone marrow without ...

"Neanderthals have an Rh blood group that is very rare in modern humans," study lead author Stéphane Mazières, a population geneticist at Aix-Marseille University, told Live Science in an email.