As we move on into the history of the evolution of our species, it begs the question, "Why modern humans, and not modern Neanderthals or Denisovans?" While there are some solid hypotheses out there about that, which we'll talk about in class and will be in your book, the question posed above is partially based on a misunderstanding of speciation. In fact, the case is such that Neanderthals didn't entirely go extinct so much as they bred into the Archaic Homo sapiens population! How do we know this and what does this mean for human evolution and our genetic diversity? Some answers are posed below in yet another TED talk (I really like TED talks, can't you tell?). This time, Svante Pääbo, a director of human evolutionary research at the Max Planck Institute, discusses the evidence for human evolution located in our own DNA.
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