Neanderthal and Denisovan

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/neanderthals-suffered-a-lot-of-traumatic-injuries-so-how-did-they-live-so-long/ar-BBOybzT?ocid=spartandhp

Ever since testing my brother and my own DNA at all the testing companies I have acquired a few results for Neanderthal and Denisovan.

National Genographic found my brother to have 1.9% Neanderthal and 3.5% Denisovan. Our Denisovan is at the upper range as the average is 2.1%.

23 and Me found 300 variants for my brother (highest is 397 in their database apparently) and I tested at 285 variants.

Every once in while, like the article's link above, information is published on Neanderthal. When I was young in the 1940s and 1950s, the image of Neanderthal was poorly understood and assumptions were made at that time that are no longer considered correct. These days Neanderthals are thought to have survived for 500,000 years and perished because of their inability to adapt to the Ice Age. Given other research, the interbreeding with Homo Sapiens did not result in viable male offspring; only female children survived so one is left to surmise this was also a cause for the decline in Neanderthal.

The Denisovan rather intrigues me as we have 3.5% with an average overall for Homo Sapiens tested of 2.1%. Since my family's yDNA and mtDNA are ancient to the British Isles,the presence of 3.5% Denisovan is our family is rather interesting. The mitochondrial line H11a2a1 is thought to have wintered in the Ukraina refuge during the last glacial maximum. East Asians tend to have the higher percentages of Denisovan with 5% being found in some Australian peoples. Where ever did we acquire 3.5%? But then once one gets back into the 7th, 8th great grandparents not all of these individuals are known. Traders from the South Seas were certainly coming to Europe and perhaps I have this very interesting ancestor way back then!