Genetic diversity of late Neanderthals in northwestern Europe
Abstract
Abstract Archaeological, osteological and genetic evidence suggests that Neanderthals lived in small groups 1,2 ; however, less is known about whether these groups were part of isolated communities or belonged to larger, well-connected populations 3 . The dense concentration of broadly contemporaneous Neanderthal sites in the Meuse Basin, Belgium 4 , provides a rare opportunity to study regional populations at high resolution. Here we generated genetic data from 27 Neanderthals who lived less than approximately 52,500 years ago from ten archaeological sites in Belgium and France, including a high-coverage genome from a 45,000-year-old individual from Goyet, Belgium. We show that most of these individuals are more closely related to one another than to other contemporaneous late Neanderthals in Europe. Further, some of these individuals carry DNA from a Neanderthal lineage predating the split of late Neanderthals. Although these Neanderthals overlapped temporally with early modern humans in northwestern Europe from around 47,000 years ago, we find no evidence of recent gene flow from modern humans. They also do not show the genetic signatures of mating among close relatives found in Altai Neanderthals, suggesting that they lived in larger or better-connected groups. Moreover, genetic load did not accumulate over time, arguing against progressive genetic deterioration as a driver of Neanderthal extinction.
Article Details
Authors (40)
Alba Bossoms Mesa
Elena Essel
Stéphane Peyrégne
Arev P. Sümer
Leonardo N. M. Iasi
Christian Heide
Divyaratan Popli
Cesare de Filippo
Marie-Theres Gansauge
Lars Gerullat
Laurin Lippik
Sarah Nagel
Birgit Nickel
Barbara Schellbach
Anna Schmidt
Johann Visagie
Antje Weihmann
Hugo Zeberg
Julia Zorn
Hélène Rougier
Isabelle Crevecoeur
Patrick Semal
Grégory Abrams
Thibaut Devièse
Stéphane Pirson
Kévin Di Modica
Pierre Cattelain
Christelle Draily
Michel Toussaint
Isabelle De Groote
Frido Welker
Cosimo Posth
Marie Soressi
Jean-Jacques Hublin
Johannes Krause
Svante Pääbo
Matthias Meyer
Janet Kelso
Benjamin M. Peter
Mateja Hajdinjak