An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

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 PeÅŸtera 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.

Year of Publication
2015
Journal
Nature
Volume
524
Issue
7564
Pages
216-9
Date Published
2015 Aug 13
ISSN
1476-4687
URL
DOI
10.1038/nature14558
PubMed ID
26098372
PubMed Central ID
PMC4537386
Links
Grant list
R01 GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States