Scientists have identified a new timeframe for when Neanderthals began mixing with modern humans, based on DNA analysis of the earliest known inhabitants of Europe.
Research published in Nature on Thursday suggests that this genetic intermingling occurred between 45,000 and 49,000 years ago, indicating that both groups coexisted in Europe for at least 5,000 years.
In particular, radiocarbon dating of bone fragments from Ranis, Germany, revealed that these early humans exhibited 2.9% Neanderthal ancestry. This mixing is believed to have stemmed from a single event that affected all non-African individuals, occurring roughly 80 generations prior to the samples’ time.
The Ranis group represents some of the oldest known family units, according to Arev Sumer, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and co-author of the study. Among the six individuals analyzed, a close kinship was noted, including a mother-daughter pair. These findings suggest that the ancestors of all currently sequenced non-African early humans shared common lineage.
“This was surprising, as modern humans had just left Africa a few thousand years earlier and arrived in Northern Europe during the Ice Age,” said Johannes Krause, a biochemist and co-author of the study.
Previous studies involving early humans in Europe indicated minimal instances of mixing with Neanderthals. Samples from the Bacho Kiro region in Bulgaria and a woman named Zlaty kun from Czechia, thought to be part of the early “Out-of-Africa” migration, showed limited interbreeding. The Bulgarian samples suggested only two mixing events with Neanderthals, while Zlaty kun’s lineage indicated just one.
Interestingly, Zlaty kun demonstrated a distant genetic connection to two individuals from the Ranis group, which is believed to be part of a small population with no surviving descendants today.
Neanderthals are thought to have gone extinct approximately 40,000 years ago. This research helps elucidate the timeline of their intermingling with early Homo sapiens and sheds light on the demographics during the initial migrations out of Africa.
Sumer emphasized that further research is necessary to understand the events following the Out-of-Africa migration and the early movements of modern humans across Europe and Asia.
Credit: ABC News
