Fossils found in Bulgaria show that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens coexisted much more closely than previously thought, Bild newspaper writes.

DNA data from bones in the Bacho Kiro cave show that modern humans immigrated to Europe not 41,000 years ago, but 8,000 years earlier. According to the findings, the two species did not compete for survival. More than 300 generations lived peacefully together. They inhabited the same caves and formed common families. “That's why modern humans still carry up to 4% Neanderthal DNA”, said Professor Jean-Jacques Hublin, Director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.