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POPULATION GENOMICS

Encounters with archaic hominins

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 14–15 (2019)Cite this article

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The presence of Neanderthal DNA fragments in the genomes of modern humans from Europe and East Asia indicates multiple episodes of interbreeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of both populations.

Although modern humans are currently found across the globe, less than 100,000 years ago they were mostly confined to Africa. At that time their hominin cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, inhabited western and eastern Eurasia, respectively. When groups of anatomically modern humans started spreading out of Africa, these populations met. The traces of these encounters can be now found in the genomes of the descendants of those humans who migrated out of Africa — their genomes carry 2–6% of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA fragments. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Villanea and Schraiber1 report that Neanderthals did not contribute to the modern human gene pool just once; an initial encounter between modern humans migrating out of Africa was followed by additional independent encounters with the ancestors of modern European and East Asian populations.

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Fig. 1: Map of the encounters between different archaic hominins and ancient modern humans (AMH).

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  1. Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

    Fabrizio Mafessoni

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  1. Fabrizio Mafessoni
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Mafessoni.

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Mafessoni, F. Encounters with archaic hominins. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 14–15 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0729-6

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