BKCunningham-

If you had researched a little further, you would have found the author of the first article, Ann Gibbons, did more writing than the one article. I am pasting a synopsis of another of her articles. It states in it that prehistoric Neantherdal bones found in Croatia were over 38,000 years old. This article was written a few years after the one you posted a link to.

"Paleogenetics
Paleogenetics
Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind
Ann Gibbons
Summary
On page 710 of this week's issue of Science, an international team of researchers presents their first detailed analysis of the draft sequence of the Neandertal genome, which now includes more than 3 billion nucleotides collected from the bones of three female Neandertals who lived in Croatia more than 38,000 years ago. By comparing this composite Neandertal genome with the complete genomes of five living humans from different parts of the world, the researchers found that both Europeans and Asians share 1% to 4% of their nuclear DNA with Neandertals. But Africans do not. This suggests that early modern humans interbred with Neandertals after moderns left Africa, but before they spread into Asia and Europe. In a separate paper (p. 723), the team describes and successfully tests a new method for filling in gaps in the rough draft of the genome."

That kind of blows the 6,500 years out of the water, doesn't it?