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One hundred thousand years ago, Neanderthals gathered in a cave perched 3,000 feet up in present-day Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains. While cooking and watching youngsters wrestle, they littered the floor with DNA in shed skin, spit and other bodily debris.
Dirt accumulated and protected the genetic material for millennia, even as humans and animals sheltered there. At the site, known as Estatuas, archaeologists have uncovered abundant stone tools and animal bones since 2008. The sole Neanderthal bone found — a toe tip with Swiss cheese consistency — seemed too precious to crush for DNA analysis. The scientists therefore couldn’t elucidate the inhabitants’ genetic traits and ties with other Neanderthal clans.
Instead, they searched the dirt for loose DNA. In 2018, researchers dropped into pits at Estatuas and collected sediment from ...
