Neanderthal Genome Project

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In July 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences announced that they would be sequencing the Neanderthal genome over the next two years. At three billion base pairs, the Neanderthal genome is roughly the size of the human genome; preliminary sequences reveal very few differences: human and Neanderthal DNA appear to be 99.5 percent identical. It is thought that a comparison of the Neanderthal genome and Human genome will expand understanding of Neanderthals as well as the evolution of humans and human brains, following early ambiguous reports that at least some of this pre-modern human lineage lives on in our own genomes.

Deterioration of the DNA in fossil samples and contamination with modern human DNA complicate the process.