Human evolution: trysting with Neanderthals (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 07, 2021, 21:22 (1324 days ago) @ David Turell

More recently more common than realized:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/europe-oldest-known-humans-mated-neandertals-dna-fo...

"When some of the earliest human migrants to Europe encountered Neandertals already living there around 45,000 years ago, hookups flourished.

"Analyses of DNA found in human fossils from around that time — the oldest known human remains in Europe — suggest that interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neandertals, who were on the fast track to extinction, occurred more commonly than has often been assumed, two new studies suggest.

"Genetic evidence in the new reports indicates for the first time that distinct human populations reached Europe shortly after 50,000 years ago. Neandertals interbred with all the groups detected so far, ensuring that some of their genes live on today in our DNA.

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"Remains of three H. sapiens individuals unearthed in Bulgaria’s Bacho Kiro Cave yielded nuclear DNA containing Neandertal contributions of about 3 to 4 percent, says a team led by evolutionary geneticist Mateja Hajdinjak of the Francis Crick Institute in London. The ancient DNA came from a tooth and two bone fragments radiocarbon dated to between around 43,000 and 46,000 years ago. Stone tools typical of late Stone Age humans were found in the same sediment as the fossils.

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"If H. sapiens and Neandertals regularly interbred as the latter population neared its demise, then relatively large numbers of incoming humans accumulated a surprising amount of DNA from smaller Neandertal populations, Lalueza-Fox suspects. After 40,000 years ago, additional migrations into Europe by people with little or no Neandertal ancestry would have further diluted Neandertal DNA from the human gene pool, he says.

"Those humans made distinctive stone and bone tools and served as ancestors of present-day Europeans, Hajdinjak suggests. At Bacho Kiro Cave, for instance, newly recovered DNA from a roughly 35,000-year-old H. sapiens bone fragment displays a different makeup than that of the cave’s earlier human inhabitants. This individual contributed genes mainly to later populations in Europe and western Asia, Hajdinjak says."

Comment: Sexual activity always attracts.