Ana B. Marín Arroyo
Full Professor of Prehistory and Director of the EvoAdapta Group at the University of Cantabria
In recent years, paleogenetic studies are providing higher resolution data on one of the most relevant periods of our evolution, which is the decline of Neanderthal populations and the emergence of our species. Early paleogenetic studies already showed that we had fertile offspring with Neanderthals and that Neanderthals also hybridized with Denisovans, something that is not visible in the record of human fossils found so far.
This work published in the journal Science confirms that there was a single gene flow from Neanderthals to the first representatives of our species in Europe between 50 and 43,000 years ago, confirming what archaeological evidence already indicated about the spatio-temporal coincidence of both species on the continent. In addition, it sheds light on how different Neanderthal genes related to skin pigmentation, the immune system or metabolic development could have been beneficial for our health and biological adaptations to a climatically unstable environment.
In short, this study confirms genetically the moment of interaction between Neanderthals and our species at the end of the Pleistocene and how their genes have left a permanent imprint on what we are today as a species.