A groundbreaking study by scientists from Southeast University in Nanjing and Princeton University has uncovered significant gene flow between modern humans and Neanderthals.
Neanderthals, the extinct relatives of humans, roamed Europe and Western Asia around 400,000 years ago before disappearing about 30,000 years ago. When modern humans migrated from Africa to the Middle East, they likely encountered Neanderthals, leading to periods of coexistence and genetic mixing.
The research team developed a novel method to identify human-introgressed sequences within the Neanderthal genome. By analyzing whole-genome sequences from 2,000 contemporary humans and three Neanderthals, they discovered that Neanderthal genomes contain between 2.5% and 3.7% genetic material from modern humans. This finding was published in the latest edition of the journal Science.
Additionally, the study revealed that the Neanderthal population was about 20% smaller than previously estimated. This smaller population size suggests that harmful mutations were more likely to accumulate, contributing to their eventual absorption into the modern human gene pool.
The researchers also proposed that there were two distinct waves of gene flow from humans to Neanderthals, occurring approximately 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. These insights provide a deeper understanding of human evolution and the complex interactions between our species and Neanderthals.
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Scientists identify gene flow of modern humans with Neanderthals
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