Had my DNA tested a few years ago and I am about 3% Neanderthal. Apparently, unless your ancestors came directly from Africa, you have some Neanderthal DNA.
Our hidden Neandertal DNA may increase risk of allergies, depression (link) "A breakthrough came when population geneticist Joshua Akey of the University of Washington, Seattle, and evolutionary genomicist Tony Capra of Vanderbilt University in Nashville independently realized that they could fish for Neandertal gene variants in a medical database, the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network". "The search netted a dozen Neandertal genes likely to cause significant risk of disease today. For example, one gene variant apparently makes blood more sticky and prone to coagulate. This fast clotting may have spelled the difference between life and death when Neandertals hunted dangerous animals or hemorrhaged after birthing big-brained babies. But it can also increase the risk of blood clots and strokes, which would have been much less common in prehistoric times when most people died young".
Study reveals culprit behind Piltdown Man, one of science’s most famous hoaxes (link) "The likeliest hand belonged to Charles Dawson, who died almost exactly 100 years ago, De Groote says. An amateur geologist, archaeologist, and historian, he regularly attended meetings of geologists and anthropologists, she notes. He was an inveterate fossil hunter with access to collections and the knowledge of what prehistoric finds should look like". "He also had a habit of small-time forgery, with several other of his less-celebrated findings later being shown to be fakes. More than anything, he was desperate for acceptance and recognition within the U.K. scientific community, De Groote says. Letters reveal his persistent, but ultimately fruitless, attempts to join the Royal Society". This 1915 painting by John Cooke depicts scientists comparing Piltdown Man's remains to other species. Charles Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward stand next to each other toward the upper right.