Modern Human Origins in Central Europe (original) (raw)
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Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry
Nature
Modern humans appeared in Europe by at least 45,000 years ago1–5, but the extent of their interactions with Neanderthals, who disappeared by about 40,000 years ago6, and their relationship to the broader expansion of modern humans outside Africa are poorly understood. Here we present genome-wide data from three individuals dated to between 45,930 and 42,580 years ago from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria1,2. They are the earliest Late Pleistocene modern humans known to have been recovered in Europe so far, and were found in association with an Initial Upper Palaeolithic artefact assemblage. Unlike two previously studied individuals of similar ages from Romania7 and Siberia8 who did not contribute detectably to later populations, these individuals are more closely related to present-day and ancient populations in East Asia and the Americas than to later west Eurasian populations. This indicates that they belonged to a modern human migration into Europe that was not previously known from the...
An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor
Nature, 2015
Neanderthals are thought to have disappeared in Europe approximately 39,000-41,000 years ago but they have contributed 1-3% of the DNA of present-day people in Eurasia. Here we analyse DNA from a 37,000-42,000-year-old modern human from Peştera cu Oase, Romania. Although the specimen contains small amounts of human DNA, we use an enrichment strategy to isolate sites that are informative about its relationship to Neanderthals and present-day humans. We find that on the order of 6-9% of the genome of the Oase individual is derived from Neanderthals, more than any other modern human sequenced to date. Three chromosomal segments of Neanderthal ancestry are over 50 centimorgans in size, indicating that this individual had a Neanderthal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back. However, the Oase individual does not share more alleles with later Europeans than with East Asians, suggesting that the Oase population did not contribute substantially to later humans in Europe.
The assimilation model, modern human origins in Europe, and the extinction of Neandertals
Quaternary international, 2005
Debate continues concerning the role of the Neandertals in the emergence of early modern Europeans. This paper presents one assessment of aspects of the morphological data, chronological patterns, genetic information and archaeology relevant to the debate. It is clear that none of these unequivocally support any of the models offered to explain modern human origins. In fact despite various claims to the contrary, there continues to be valid scientific debate about the interpretation of patterns from all of these disciplinary domains and which models they are more commensurate with. The assessment presented here concludes that the assimilation model is the best explanation for the origin of anatomically modern humans in Europe. If Neandertals are assimilated into in-migrating populations of modern people in Europe, then Neandertals do not go extinct in the classical sense of the word. r
Morphological Evidence for Modern Human Influences in Late Central European Neandertals
2015
The long-standing debate on the role of Neandertals in the emergence of modern humans in Eurasia has been partially resolved by the genetic indications of relatively small, but not insignificant, Neandertal contributions to modern Eurasian populations. The relatively small contributions of Neandertals to modern humans likely stems from demographic factors limiting Neandertal population sizes. One of the issues not addressed by the genetic data was the impact of early modern human immigrant populations on the late Neandertals inhabiting Eurasia between ~35,000 and 45,000 years ago. East Central Europe, the area of focus for most of Karel Valoch's work, provides evidence of late Neandertals from the sites of Vindija (Croatia) and Šipka and Kůlna (Czech Republic). Analysis of the fragmentary Vindija specimens demonstrates an anatomical pattern reflecting reduction in facial size and prognathism. This pattern is consistent in all individuals but is projected onto a total morphologic...
Nuclear DNA from two early Neandertals reveals 80,000 years of genetic continuity in Europe
Science Advances
Little is known about the population history of Neandertals over the hundreds of thousands of years of their existence. We retrieved nuclear genomic sequences from two Neandertals, one from Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany and the other from Scladina Cave in Belgium, who lived around 120,000 years ago. Despite the deeply divergent mitochondrial lineage present in the former individual, both Neandertals are genetically closer to later Neandertals from Europe than to a roughly contemporaneous individual from Siberia. That the Hohlenstein-Stadel and Scladina individuals lived around the time of their most recent common ancestor with later Neandertals suggests that all later Neandertals trace at least part of their ancestry back to these early European Neandertals.