By Kevin’s Path

The bones of over four hundred neanderthals have been found to date. But, my roommate Garin is the closest thing to a living specimen.

My name is Adam, and I am a graduate student at The UCSC Paleogenomics Lab. Garin is my coworker at the lab. We spend just about every waking hour in the lab cataloging genetic sequences extracted from neanderthal bones. A huge open bone pit was discovered in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain with the remains of at least 28 neanderthal individuals living there about 100,000 years ago – all of them male. It is a puzzle why there were so many males found living in one place together with no females. Garin and I analyze the bone fragments that our group leader sends back from the field.

Part of what’s done with them is to sequence genetic material in the bone fragments. Several research teams, including our team, had sequenced the genome of homo neanderthalensis.

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