On May 7, 2010, in a paper released in Science, an international consortium announced sequencing the genome of our closest relative, the Neandertal.  The team reported the sequencing of an initial draft of the genome. The sequence was generated from several Neandertal fossils from Croatia, Germany, Spain and Russia using high-throughput sequencing technologies.

Results indicated that Neandertals are slightly more closely related to modern humans outside Africa. The team also identified several genomic regions that appear to have played important roles during human evolution.