Carmel Mountains, present-day Israel. In the Skhul and Qafzeh caves live small groups of Homo Sapiens. In nearby caves just a few kilometers away, the Tabun and Kebara Caves, 55,000 years later small groups of Homo Neanderthals will live. According to Svante Paabo, this is a clue that perhaps Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthals came into contact in the Middle East, before spreading to Asia, Europe, Oceania, the Americas, and here in the Middle East, they mated to the point that 2% of Neanderthal genes remained in human DNA.
