That it was found hidden within modern human DNA is far less so. Even before the DNA decoding was started, a skeleton had been discovered in Portugal that combined human and Neanderthal features to the point that no one could say it was either species, but obviously had to have been a hybrid.
There was little that was primitive about Neanderthals when you compare the technologies of the two species of the same time. Differences were that Neaderthals were territorial, while humans tended to wander over large areas; Neaderthals were ambush hunters while humans were chase hunters. However, the bottom line is that they were people and the fact that they interbred with us is no mystery.
Nearly everyone outside Africa has measurable DNA from Neanderthals. Only the humans who stayed behind in Africa never encountered them, so if a DNA ancestry test shows you to be 100% of African origin, you can call yourself racially pure. How's that, Klanners?
The people with the lowest percentage of Neanderthal DNA are mostly in Asia. The people with the highest are in northern Italy.
There are a few "clean" reconstructions of Neanderthal skulls that demonstrate you might think they were a little strange looking, but you'd never consider them non human. Nor did our ancestors.
The 40,000 year disappearance date coincides with a major eruption of the Campi Flegrei, something volcanologists are saying might be coming due again to the point that it could be next year or it could be in a few thousand years.
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