Neanderthal DNA extracted from cave dirt shows population movements 100,000 years ago

Some 100,000 years ago, deep in a cave in what is now northern Spain, a Neanderthal female lived — and maybe died.

She may have been alone, or perhaps accompanied by sisters or a daughter. But she certainly wasn’t the first of her species to be there — not by a long shot.

She was part of a group of Neanderthals that replaced another population that had called the area home for tens of thousands of years.

This snapshot of history was told not by fossilised…