Reich Proposes Neanderthals May Be Culturally Modern Despite Genetic Archaic Status

What was said

"I'm interested in the possibility that actually the right way to think about Neanderthals is actually as somehow culturally modern humans, uh, and, uh, even though that genetically they're mostly Denisovans. And the model I'm thinking about is motivated by this archaeological phenomenon known as the Middle Stone Age Revolution."

Reich presented an unpublished theory that Neanderthals resulted from modern human populations expanding into Europe 300,000 years ago, mixing heavily with local archaic populations while transmitting Middle Stone Age technology and mitochondrial DNA. This would explain why Neanderthals share stone tool techniques and mitochondrial DNA with modern humans despite whole-genome data clustering them with Denisovans. The model suggests cultural and biological diffusion were decoupled during archaic-modern human contact.