Population dynamics of Late Neanderthals

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—A study charts the dynamics of Late Neanderthal populations. The population history of Neanderthals in Europe could help uncover events that led to Neanderthals’ extinction. Cosimo Posth and colleagues compiled 10 mitochondrial DNA sequences of Neanderthals from six archaeological sites across Europe, dating to the Late Pleistocene Epoch. The authors compared the mitochondrial sequences with 49 previously published Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA sequences. By the Late Neanderthal period, the analysis found, nearly all known individuals across Europe belonged to a single mitochondrial DNA lineage, suggesting a large-scale genetic replacement of Neanderthal populations. The replacement may have begun around 65,000 years ago, as Neanderthals from a refuge area in southern France expanded across Europe. Mitochondrial evidence suggested that the population size of Neanderthals plunged beginning around 45,000 years ago and reached a minimum around 42,000 years ago, shortly before their extinction. The findings suggest a sequence in which climate fluctuations may have caused a contraction of Neanderthal populations into a climate refuge and a subsequent expansion that resulted in genetic homogeneity and extinction, according to the authors.

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals,” by Charoula M. Fotiadou et al. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520565123