[BroJoeK]

mountainlion: "I did not find the post by IOW but most of these stories do seem credible after frauds like Nebraska Man, Peking Man, Java Man and the like.
I think Neanderthal mating with modern man is a fantastic."

Nebraska Man was a simple mistake, published 92 years ago, corrected 87 years ago.
Nothing like it has happened since.

Peking Man and Java Man are both today considered valid examples of homo erectus from roughly a million years ago.
Other similar fossils have been found from the same time period in widely scattered locations.

Evidence from mtDNA suggests that human and Neanderthal common ancestors lived circa 750,000 years ago, a time which corresponds to homo antecessor fossils.
But nuclear DNA also suggests a small amount of interbreeding between humans & Neanderthals, in the range of 50,000 years ago in the Middle East.

As for that German scientist convicted of faking some of his report data -- that was one man, years ago, in a field where at least hundreds work every day to discover and interpret data about our evolutionary past.
So his errors are not included in today's understandings, and should not be used to discredit the entire enterprise.

[mountainlion]

Tell me where the mtDNA is located. What is nuclear dna? I am studying my own DNA and have studied Y-Dna, Mt-dna and autosonimal DNA. Nuclear dna was never mentioned. Also assuming a 50 year generation and 50,000 years the DNA would be so diluted that prehistoric dna of less than several thousand parents would not even show up.