Neandertals became extinct about 40,000 years ago but contributed on average one to three percent to the genomes of present-day Eurasians. Researchers have now analyzed¹ DNA² from a 37,000 to 42,000-year-old human mandible from Oase Cave in Romania and have found that six to nine percent of this person's genome came from Neandertals, more than any other human sequenced to date. Because large segments of this individual's chromosomes³ are of Neandertal origin, a Neandertal was among his ancestors as recently as four to six generations back in his family tree. This shows that some of the first modern humans that came to Europe mixed with the local Neandertals. All present-day humans who have their roots outside sub-Saharan Africa carry one to three percent of Neandertal DNA in their genomes. Until now, researchers have thought it most likely that early humans coming from Africa mixed with Neandertals in the Middle East around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, before spreading into Asia, Europe and the rest of the world. However, radiocarbon dating of remains⁴ from sites across Europe suggests that modern humans and Neandertals both lived in Europe for up to 5,000 years and that they may have interbred there, too.

 

In 2002, a 40,000-year-old jawbone was found by cavers in Oase Cave in south-western Romania and the site was subsequently studied by an international team led by the researchers of the Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology in Romania. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary⁵ Anthropology⁶ (Germany), Harvard Medical School (USA), and the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins in Beijing (China) have now analyzed DNA from this fossil, which is one of the earliest modern-human remains found in Europe. They estimate that five to 11 percent of the genome preserved in the bone derives⁷ from a Neandertal ancestor, including exceptionally large segments of some chromosomes. By estimating how lengths of DNA inherited from an ancestor shorten with each generation, the researchers estimated that the man had a Neandertal ancestor in the previous four to six generations.

 

"The data from the jawbone imply that humans mixed with Neandertals not just in the Middle East but in Europe as well" says 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 coordinated⁸ the population genetic⁹ analyses of the study. "It may be that he was part of an early migration¹⁰ of modern humans to Europe that interacted closely with Neandertals but eventually became extinct".

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