DNA taken from a 40,000-year-old modern human jawbone from the cave Pestera cu Oase in Romania reveals that this man had a Neandertal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back.IMAGE, SVANTE PAABO, MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGYBetween 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, modern humans spread throughout Europe. Around the same time, Neanderthals disappeared from the landscape—but not before interbreeding with Homo sapiens. Recent research has revealed that all non-Africans living today retain a genetic trace—1-3 percent of the genome—of Neanderthal ancestry. And 40,000 years ago, human genomes may have contained twice as much Neanderthal DNA, according to a study published today (June 22) in Nature.
Genetic material recovered from 40,000-year-old human bones unearthed in Romania harbors about 6-9 percent Neanderthal DNA, the study reports. Some of this DNA was contained in three relatively large chromosome segments, suggesting the individual had a Neanderthal ancestor only four to six generations back. “I think the conclusions are quite clear, and it’s really quite remarkable that they were lucky to find a hybrid that was so recent to be able to date it to a few generations back,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a University of California Berkeley population geneticist who was not involved with the work.
“What’s amazing about this sample is that we were so lucky to find it,” agreed Harvard Medical School population geneticist David Reich, a senior author on the paper.
Reich ...
