Neanderthals gave us the human papillomavirus

The sexually transmitted diseases They exist since the beginning of humanity. Herpes appeared more than a million years ago and syphilis since the Middle Ages. Researchers believe that these diseases forced former humans to be monogamous to avoid getting sick.

A recent survey conducted by a team of scientists from different countries and published in the journal PLOS Pathogens indicates that the Human papillomavirus (HPV) could have been introduced to the "modern" man through his sexual contacts with Neanderthals and Denisovans

The theory specifically suggests the transmission of the HPV16 strain, which can cause cancer in humans. Although there are more than 200 types of HPV, only two can be harmful to humans. the above and the HPV18.

Although HPV can not be studied through the skeletal remains of ancient humans or Neanderthals and Denisovans, the virus can not be detected in the bones, the researchers isolated the primate virus in order to conduct viral genomic studies to determine the divergence of the Variants of HPV of their most recent common ancestors.

With the help of mathematics, scientists determined the evolutionary line of HPV and explained:

When the Neanderthals and Denisovans they left Africa (hundreds of thousands of years before "modern humans" already carry an ancestral form of HPV that eventually became VPH16a and when the humans of Neanderthals and Denisovans were found, they had sex and acquired the virus.

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