DNA of early Neanderthal gives timeline for new modern human-related dispersal from Africa
Ancient mitochondrial DNA from the femur of an archaic European hominin is helping to resolve the complicated relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals. The genetic data recovered by the research team, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Tübingen, provides a timeline for a proposed hominin migration out of Africa that occurred after the ancestors of Neanderthals arrived in Europe by a lineage more closely related to modern humans. These hominins interbred with Neanderthals already present in Europe, leaving their mark on the Neanderthals' mitochondrial DNA. The study, published today in Nature Communications, pushes back the possible date of this event to between 470,000 and 220,000 years ago.