2021/04/07 by Kay Prüfer, Cosimo Posth, Yu He +9 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Arts and Humanities · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies #Genetic diversity and population structure #Neanderthal #Human evolution #Homo sapiens #Biological dispersal #Genome #Population #Upper Paleolithic #Skull #Human migration #Out of africa #Evolutionary biology #Hominidae #Homo erectus #Ancient DNA #Biology #Geography #Biological evolution #Archaeology #Paleontology #Demography #Genetics #Pleistocene #Gene
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41559-021-01443-x
openalex publication_date 2021/04/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Modern humans expanded into Eurasia more than 40,000 years ago following their dispersal out of Africa. These Eurasians carried ~2-3% Neanderthal ancestry in their genomes, originating from admixture with Neanderthals that took place sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, probably in the Middle East. In Europe, the modern human expansion preceded the disappearance of Neanderthals from the fossil record by 3,000-5,000 years. The genetic makeup of the first Europeans who colonized the continent more than 40,000 years ago remains poorly understood since few specimens have been studied. Here, we analyse a genome generated from the skull of a female individual from Zlatý kůň, Czechia. We found that she belonged to a population that appears to have contributed genetically neither to later Europeans nor to Asians. Her genome carries ~3% Neanderthal ancestry, similar to those of other Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. However, the lengths of the Neanderthal segments are longer than those observed in the currently oldest modern human genome of the ~45,000-year-old Ust'-Ishim individual from Siberia, suggesting that this individual from Zlatý kůň is one of the earliest Eurasian inhabitants following the expansion out of Africa.