By Jenny Graves /The Conversation Neanderthals, the closest cousins of modern humans, lived in parts of Europe and Asia until their extinction some 30,000 years ago. Genetic studies are revealing ever more about the links between modern humans and these long-gone relatives – most recently that a rush of interbreeding between our species occurred in a relatively short burst of time around 47,000 years ago. But one mystery still remains. The Homo sapiens genome today contains a little bit of Neanderthal DNA. These genetic traces come from almost every part of the Neanderthal genome – except the Y sex chromosome, which is responsible for making males. So what happened to the Neanderthal Y chromosome? It could have been lost by accident, or because of mating patterns or inferior function. However, the answer may lie in a century-old theory about the health of interspecies hybrids. Top Ten Myths about Neanderthals DNA Study Suggests Early Neanderthals Had Europe As Their Homebase Read moreSection: NewsEvolution & Human OriginsRead Later