What Happened To The First Modern Humans in Europe is TERRIFYING

Genetically, El Sidrón Neanderthals are particularly interesting, they have unique variants such as the MC1-R gene for light skin and red hair, and other genes for blue eyes. Their genomes also contain modern human variants— including blood type O, which is thought to have been acquired through hybridization.

Their blood—once coursing through their veins 49,000 years ago—was identical to that of modern humans. This family carried the 2-6-1 deletion in the A-B-O gene, the very same genetic marker that defines the modern O blood type, the most common blood group on Earth today. This was not some distant cousin of our blood, but our blood exactly.

What this means is stunning. While the O blood type has been found in Neanderthals elsewhere, the El Sidrón variant is genetically indistinguishable from the O type in modern humans. In this light, the Iberian Neanderthals—those of El Sidrón—might not have been seen as kin by their northern relatives, but as something alien.

SOURCES:
Genetic characterization of the ABO blood group in Neandertals
https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com...

Neandertal and Denisovan blood groups deciphered
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/press/neandert...

Thorin related to Gibraltar Woman/Forbes Quarry
https://www.sci.news/archaeology/thor...

El Sidron North/South Divide
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-neander...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...