When modern humans first emerged from Africa, they followed in the footsteps of another human species that had gone this way before. Eventually, our brave ancestors caught up with their Neanderthal cousins ​​and made more than just friends. New genetic analysis of the oldest known modern human remains, found at Ranis in Germany and Zlaty Kun in the Czech Republic, shows: homo sapiens And Homo neanderthalism They mixed together between 45,000 and 49,000 years ago. The findings by Max Planck Institute anthropologist Arev Sumer and an international group of colleagues are newer than previous assessments.

Today, all people, except those of African descent, carry traces of this union in their DNA. The results of the study indicate that this genetic exchange occurred approximately 80 generations before the subjects were born, and as in previous studies, the results suggest that such encounters likely occurred more than once.

“Our analysis shows that the Zlatý kůň/Ranis population diverged early from the lineage leading to other non-African humans, leaving no descendants among modern humans,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

“So the Neanderthal DNA they carry may have emerged through a different event than the emergence of Neanderthal DNA identified in all modern populations outside Africa.”

The researchers analyzed the nuclear genomes of six individuals found on Ranis, dating back about 45,000 years. Their mitochondrial DNA from their mother had previously identified them as: homo sapiens but failed to provide sufficient context to show how they interacted with other people associated with a particular tool-making culture in the region.

“To our surprise, we found a fifth- or sixth-degree genetic relationship between Zlatý kůň and two individuals from Ranis,” says Sümer. “This means that Zlatý kůň was genetically part of the extended Ranis family and probably also made tools [лінкомбійсько-ранісійсько-єрзмановіцького] medicine”.

The team was able to extract high-quality ancient DNA from one of the 13 individuals from Ranis and a Zlatý kůň individual from the Czech Republic. The Zlatý kůň/Ranis group has genes coding for dark skin, hair and eyes, as expected from recent African immigrants. Comparison of genes shared between the two groups suggests that the population of these modern human precursors was around a few hundred.

“These results give us a deeper understanding of the early pioneers who settled Europe,” explains Max Planck Institute biochemist Johannes Krause. “They also note that any modern human remains older than 50,000 years found outside Africa cannot be part of the common non-African population that interbred with Neanderthals and is now found throughout much of the world.”

The second new paper, examining 300 human genomes from the last 50,000 years, suggests that the vast majority of our Neanderthal genes emerged over a long period between 50,500 and 43,500 years ago. This is consistent with the findings of another paper and could potentially apply to another wave of immigrants, including our direct ancestors.

Max Planck Institute geneticist Leonardo Yasi and his colleagues compared 59 ancient human genomes with 275 different modern humans. It appears that rapid natural selection removed or removed Neanderthal genes from our genome over about 100 generations, bringing them closer to the level most of us have today. Two articles were published in Nature And Science.