First complete Neanderthal genome sequencedFull nuclear sequence, offering clues about our relatives' demise, expected within months.James Morgan The first complete genome of a Neanderthal — specifically, the mitochondrial DNA found in a 38,000-year-old bone — has been sequenced.The highly accurate sequence contains clues that our relatives lived in small, isolated populations, and probably did not interbreed with their human neighbours. “This is the first ‘finished’ genome sequence of an extinct human relative,” says the study’s lead scientist, Ed Green, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Morehttp://www.nature.com/news/2008/080807/ful....2008.1026.html