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Neanderthal Genome Rewrites Human Evolution
Genetic evidence suggests there's a little Neanderthal in all of us.
Last year, an international team of researchers announced that they had completed the first draft of the Neanderthal genome--more than three billion nucleotides, sequenced from three-minute samples of bone powder. Now, in two papers published today in Science, the group reveals in-depth analyses of the data and provides an unparalleled glimpse at human evolution. By comparing Neanderthal DNA with that of living humans from around the world, the scientists have found evidence that--sometime between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago--modern humans and Neanderthals interbred.
Archeologists' traditional view of human evolution, gleaned from carbon dating, skeletal structure, fossil location, and, more recently, Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA, posits that humans today are descended from a small group of individuals that migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout the world. But the new research shows that modern humans in Africa have a lower percentage of the Neanderthal genome than non-Africans do--implying that the founder group that left Africa interbred with Neanderthals before moving on to populate the other continents. "Likely, it took place somewhere in the Middle East or in northern Africa, perhaps at the gateway as they were migrating out for the first time," says Harvard University geneticist David Reich, who performed the population genetics analyses.
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Genetic evidence suggests there's a little Neanderthal in all of us.
Last year, an international team of researchers announced that they had completed the first draft of the Neanderthal genome--more than three billion nucleotides, sequenced from three-minute samples of bone powder. Now, in two papers published today in Science, the group reveals in-depth analyses of the data and provides an unparalleled glimpse at human evolution. By comparing Neanderthal DNA with that of living humans from around the world, the scientists have found evidence that--sometime between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago--modern humans and Neanderthals interbred.
Archeologists' traditional view of human evolution, gleaned from carbon dating, skeletal structure, fossil location, and, more recently, Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA, posits that humans today are descended from a small group of individuals that migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout the world. But the new research shows that modern humans in Africa have a lower percentage of the Neanderthal genome than non-Africans do--implying that the founder group that left Africa interbred with Neanderthals before moving on to populate the other continents. "Likely, it took place somewhere in the Middle East or in northern Africa, perhaps at the gateway as they were migrating out for the first time," says Harvard University geneticist David Reich, who performed the population genetics analyses.
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