More Evidence That Neanderthals Were 'Absorbed' by Humans, Not Wiped Out

George Dvorsky
Yesterday 12:10PM

Prehistoric teeth found over 100 years ago are some of the best evidence yet for hybridized communities of Neanderthals and modern humans.

We know that Neanderthals and early modern humans interbred—our DNA tells us so—but fossil evidence in this regard is surprisingly lacking. Hence the importance of the new research paper, published today in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The evidence consists of prehistoric teeth recovered from the La Cotte de St. Brelade cave site in Jersey, an island located in the English Channel, in 1910 and 1911. The teeth, belonging to two individuals, exhibit characteristics consistent with interbreeding, pointing to the presence of hybridized populations.

There is now “considerable DNA evidence that interbreeding happened, both from fossils and modern genomes,” Chris Stringer, a co-author of the new study and an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum in London, explained in an email. Indeed, most people with recent ancestry from outside of Africa have around 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. That said, archaeologists “still don’t know the exact circumstances, nor how much this was a blending absorption of the Neanderthals into expanding modern human populations,” added Stringer.

More:
https://gizmodo.com/more-evidence-that-neanderthals-were-absorbed-by-huma-1846173050