Neanderthals often interbred with humans until they were reduced and integrated.

Homo sapiens And Neanderthal man They coexisted in prehistoric times. The former originated in Africa, while the latter lived in Eurasia. The genetic mixture of both species contributed to the formation of modern humans. The influence of Neanderthals on the conformation of the modern human genome is constantly being studied. Homo sapiens. In the opposite case, the same does not happen.

Now a study by the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics in Princeton, US, has become one of the first analyses of hybridization based on the Neanderthal perspective. The research has shown that modern humans and their European relatives began mating much earlier and to a greater extent than previously thought. The findings not only represent the proportion of human DNA in Neanderthal manbut also provides important clues about his disappearance.

Three moments of contact

To date, only three complete Neanderthal genomes have been sequenced with high quality. The bones that have allowed this genetic information to be salvaged are between 50,000 and 80,000 years old. They belonged to the last generation of Neanderthals before they disappeared from the fossil record. Based on the fossils found, it was previously believed that Neanderthals had only contact with Homo sapiens when they left Africa and headed to Europe.

But a new genomic study challenges the idea that there was a single interbreeding event. The researchers took the known Neanderthal genome and found parts of DNA that were thought to belong to Neanderthals. Homo sapiens. To confirm this, they looked for these fragments of the genome in the DNA of sub-Saharan African populations that had no contact with Neanderthals. Once the human parts of the genome were found, they could infer what proportion of human DNA had been introduced into the Neanderthal at different times, depending on the level of integration of the information.

Investigators have identified at least two other instances of contact, the first between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago, and the second between 100,000 and 120,000 years ago. This suggests that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals met and interacted longer than previously thought. During these encounters, their DNA underwent significant changes. The best estimate is that H. Neanderthal Later ones contained up to 2.7% of the ancestral people, and groups that would reach up to 10%. Modern humans have an average of 3% Neanderthal DNA.

The species was assimilated by modern humans.

The genetic variation reflected in the last Neanderthal population showed that they had less genetic diversity and that their groups were smaller than previously thought. The study suggests that this species was assimilated Homo sapiens because the descendants of the stunted Neanderthal population acquired more and more human DNA. The disappearance would not be sudden, but gradual.

“Modern humans are essentially like waves crashing onto a beach, slowly but surely eroding it. Over time, we simply outcompeted the Neanderthals and incorporated them into the modern human population,” Joshua Akey explained to EFE.