A recent DNA analysis found early European ancestors may have been more closely related to Neanderthals than we thought.
Scientists performed genome sequencing a 37,000 to 42,000-year-old human mandible from Oase Cave in Romania, and found between 6 and 9 percent of the genome came from Neanderthals, which is more than any human sequenced to date, the Max Planck Institute reported. Although Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago, they contributed to between 1 and 3 percent of the genomes in modern-day Eurasia.
The findings suggest a Neanderthal was present in this individual's lineage as recently as four to six generations earlier, which could mean the first modern humans came to Europe and mixed with local Neanderthals.
"The data from the jawbone imply that humans mixed with Neandertals not just in the Middle East but in Europe as well" said Qiaomei Fu, one of the lead researchers of the study. "Interestingly, the Oase individual does not seem to have any direct descendants in Europe today," says David Reich from Harvard Medical School who coordinated the population genetic analyses of the study. "It may be that he was part of an early migration of modern humans to Europe that interacted closely with Neandertals but eventually became extinct".
Until now, researchers believed early humans coming from Africa mixed with Neandertals in the Middle East around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, and then dispersed throughout the rest of the world. Recent radiocarbon dating of remains from sites across Europe dispute that idea, and suggests modern humans and Neanderthals lived in Europe for as long as 5,000 years and may have even interbred.
"It is such a lucky and unexpected thing to get DNA from a person who was so closely related to a Neandertal" comments Svante Paabo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who led the study. "I could hardly believe it when we first saw the results."
"We hope that DNA from other human fossils that predate the extinction of Neandertals will help reconstruct the interactions between Neandertals and modern humans in even more detail," added Mateja Hajdinjak, another key researcher involved in the study.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Nature.
