Scientists in Italy have extracted the oldest ever DNA sample to be taken from a Neanderthal . Calcium formations on ‘ Altamura Man ’ - a skeleton found in a cave in 1993 - suggest he was 128,000 to 187,000 years old . Now researchers plan to sequence his DNA to see if they can reveal new details about the evolution of our ancient ancestors . Scroll down for video . Calcium formations on ‘ Altamura Man ’ , a skeleton found in a cave in 1993 , suggest he was 128,000 to 187,000 years old . Now researchers plan to sequence his DNA to see if they can reveal new details about the evolution of our ancient ancestors . Researchers have , up until now , held off from excavating the remains as they believed it would cause irreparable to the skeleton . An earlier study of the head and part of a shoulder of suggested the skeleton belong to a Neanderthal . The current project has been ongoing for six years with researchers taking a tiny part of shoulder bone and analysing it in the lab . It is believed that Altamura Man was left in such a peculiar spot after falling in a well and getting stuck . Altamura is a city of Apulia , in southern Italy . It is believed that Altamura Man was left in such a peculiar spot after falling in a well and getting stuck . Researchers have , up until now , held off from excavating the remains as they believed it would cause irreparable to the skeleton . An earlier study of the head and part of a shoulder of suggested the skeleton belong to a Neanderthal . Pictured is ‘ Altamura Man 's ’ skull from different angles . Scientists assume he starved to death , or died from lack of water - but not much else is known about his life . Analysis revealed that the calcite on skull was formed 172,000 to 130,000 years ago , during a period when ice sheets were expanding significantly from out of Antarctica and Greenland . The team say samples of DNA have also been retrieved from the sample , and because of the age , represent the oldest such samples ever recovered from Neanderthal remains . It has been around 30,000 years since the ancestors of modern-day humans are thought to have wiped out the ancient Neanderthals . But the extinct species could be taking revenge on us from beyond the grave by making us more vulnerable to potentially killer diseases such as cancer and diabetes . Neanderthals and modern humans are thought to have co-existed for thousands of years and interbred , meaning Europeans now have roughly two per cent Neanderthal DNA . These 'legacy ' genes have been linked to an increased risk from cancer and diabetes by new studies looking at our evolutionary history . However , some genes we inherited could have also improved our immunity to other diseases . Scientists have found that part of our HLA system , which helps white blood cells to identify and destroy foreign material in the body , could have come from Neanderthals . Other researchers have suggested that humans outside Africa are more vulnerable to Type 2 Diabetes because they interbred with Neanderthals . Researchers from Oxford and Plymouth universities have also found that genes thought to be risk factors in cancer were present in the Neanderthal genome . If they manage to sequence the DNA , they hope it might reveal new details about the evolution of hominids in general and the early history of the Neanderthal . Separate research earlier this week found that Neanderthals suffered from a wide range of diseases that still plague us today - and this may be what killed them off . They have found evidence that suggests our prehistoric cousins would have been infected by diseases such as tuberculosis , typhoid , whooping cough , encephalitis and the common cold . But anthropologists from Cambridge University and Oxford Brookes University say that new diseases carried by modern humans may have led to the downfall of Neanderthals . Neanderthals are thought to have numbered up to 70,000 at their peak and lived in hunter gatherer societies .
Altamura Man was discovered in a cave in 128,000 to 187,000 years old in southern Italy . Skeleton 's calcium formations suggest it is 1993 . Scientists have successful extracted DNA and are trying to sequence it . They say DNA might reveal new details about the evolution of hominids .