“Arabian groups have the lowest Neanderthal ancestry of any known non-African population; instead much of their ancestry comes from an ancient ‘ghost’ population that likely did not interbreed with Neanderthals. This finding lends weight to a recent theory about a mysterious ‘ghost’ population that may either have left Africa and stayed in the Middle East around 60,000 years ago, or remained in Africa until after the Neanderthals had disappeared.” 

-Researchers at the University of Birmingham and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, along with their international collaborators, have analyzed the first comprehensive population-scale study of Middle Eastern DNA. [Genetic Literacy Project]