On May 26, 2020, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reported that one in three women in Europe inherited the receptor for progesterone from Neandertals ﾖ a gene variant associated with increased fertility, fewer bleedings during early pregnancy and fewer miscarriages.

Progesterone is a hormone, which plays an important role in the menstrual cycle and in pregnancy. Analyses of biobank data from more than 450,000 participants ﾖ among them 244,000 women ﾖ showed that almost one in three women in Europe have inherited the progesterone receptor from Neandertals.