love story

as an ice age crept upon them thousands of years ago, neanderthals and modern human ancestors expanded their territory ranges across asia and europe to adapt to the changing environment. in the process, they encountered each other.

although many anthropologists believe that modern humans ancestors "wiped out" neanderthals, it's more likely that neanderthals were integrated into the human gene pool thousands of years ago during the upper pleistocene era as cultural and climatic forces brought the two groups together, said arizona state university professor c. michael barton of the center for social dynamics and complexity and school of human evolution and social change.

(art by gary larson)