In 2010, a team of biologists led by Svante Paabo announced evidence that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals some 60,000-100,000 years ago. These researchers compared the full sequence of Neanderthal DNA to that of five modern humans from China, France, sub-Saharan Africa, and Papua New Guinea, and looked for DNA shared by both Neanderthals 5 and non-African modern humans, but not by sub-Saharan Africans. Because Neanderthals and modern humans are known to have diverged hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans left Africa, Paabo attributed any such common DNA to interbreeding in Eurasia. Paabo's team announced that the modern humans from China, France, and Papua New Guinea all have the same proportion of Neanderthal DNA, and inferred that interbreeding with Neanderthals 10 must have taken place before the ancestor population of those Eurasians divided. Like-wise, Paabo maintained that this interbreeding ocurred after the migration of modern humans out of Africa.

The team's conclusions were answered with skepticism on a number of fronts. Critics pointed out that an earlier report reached similar conclusions based on Neanderthal samples later found to be contaminated with DNA from modern humans. Paleontologists and archaeologists 15 charged that the conclusion was unsupported by archaeological evidence. Further, Paabo's team found evidence only of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans, not of modern human DNA in Neanderthals, but critics claim that interbreeding would result in gene flow in both directions.

Consider each of the answer choices separately and indicate all that apply.

The passage implies that which of the following claims is true?

A. Modern humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor.
B. Modern humans and Neanderthals interbred.
C. Modern humans and Neanderthals lived near one another approximately 80,000 years ago.




Consider each of the answer choices separately and indicate all that apply.

The passage suggests which of the following is true of Paabo's critics?

A. They doubt Paabo's integrity.
B. They ignore DNA evidence.
C. They sometimes appeal to archaeological evidence.