Wild Neanderthal Theory Might Prove Correct

Early anthropologists may have been more omniscient than we give them credit for. A theory born in the mountains of Afghanistan and the caves of China may now upend the dominant story of the human past. The bombshell is this: The ancestors of Neanderthals—and by extension modern humans—came from The East.

For the last 40 years, nearly everything the public has been told about human origins has flowed through a single simplified narrative: modern humans evolved in Africa, spread outward, and replaced the archaic inhabitants of Eurasia. In this version, Neanderthals became a mere footnote—an evolutionary experiment that failed and vanished.