28,000-Year-Old Lapedo Child Re-dating Narrows Neanderthal Hybrid Debate
A new radiocarbon reassessment using hydroxyproline dating places the Lagar Velho burial in central Portugal at about 27,800–28,600 calibrated years ago, well after Neanderthals had vanished in Iberia, which narrows the window for late hybridization and suggests any Neanderthal traits reflect inherited modern-human ancestry rather than a recent interbreeding event; the find remains morphological without ancient DNA, and future work may use proteomics or DNA recovery to clarify admixture.