Estimates for their population size vary from 5,000 to 70,000—tiny when one considers that they were spread across a region that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to Siberia.[71] It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is evidence of long-term inbreeding. DNA analysis of a female Neanderthal who was alive over 50,000 years ago in the Altai Mountains demonstrates that her parents were half-siblings and that mating between close relatives had been common among her recent ancestors.
