Human first modern in Europe had an ancestor Neanderthal I could have lived only “four or six generations” before, as published today in the British journal “Nature”.
The research, carried out by the Medical School of the University of Harvard (USA), draws this conclusion after analyzing the DNA of the jaw of a modern human remains found in the cave Petera cu Oase in southwestern Romania.
By comparing the genetic material of the Neanderthals with that of the first humans, the scientists obtained new evidence confirming that both species coincided in time and met sooner than previously thought.
Modern humans spread across the European continent makes between 45 000 and 35 thousand years ago, while the Neanderthals became extinct.
However, researchers recall, the first modern humans in Europe, those who did not come from Africa, remain at around 3 percent of the DNA of Neanderthals.
Consequently, early modern humans interbred with the Neanderthals, although “where and how” this happened “is less clear,” they said.
For this study, the researchers extracted generic information of a group of cranial fragments identified as Oase 1, which consists of a jaw that had a length of between 37 000 and 42 thousand years.
According to his analysis, Oase 1 conserved between 6 and 9.4 percent of the DNA of Neanderthals, more than any other modern humans studied to date.
The investigation also determined that, from the genetic point of view, Oase 1 has more in common with modern humans in East Asia and the Native Americans than Europeans today.
This finding, together with the evidence offered by archeology suggests that Oase 1 was part of a group of humans who interbred with the Neanderthals, but which, however, did not contribute to the development of modern Europeans.
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