Ancient DNA Unveils A Previously Unknown Line Of Neandertals

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Neandertals traveled at least two evolutionary paths on their way to extinction around 40,000 years ago, a new study suggests.

Whether classified as a separate species or a variant of Homo sapiens, Neandertals have typically been viewed as a genetically consistent population. But an adult male's partial skeleton discovered in France contains genetic clues to a Neandertal line that evolved apart from other European Neandertals for around 50,000 years, nearly up to the time these close relatives of H. sapiens died out, researchers say.

The possibility of a long-lasting, isolated Neandertal population in southwestern Europe supports the idea that these hominids very likely had their own, complex evolutionary history, with local extinctions and migrations, just like us," says paleogeneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, who did not participate in the new study.

A team led by archaeologist Ludovic Slimak of Universite Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier in France and population geneticist Martin Sikora of the University of Copenhagen nicknamed the French Neandertal discovery Thorin, after a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit. Thorin's remains, discovered at the entrance of Grotte Mandrin rock shelter in 2015, are still being excavated.

Several dating methods applied to teeth from Thorin and animals buried near his body, as well as Thorin's position in Grotte Mandrin sediment, indicate that this Neandertal lived between around 50,000 and 42,000 years ago, Slimak's and Sikora's group reports September 11 in Cell Genomics.

Molecular segments representing about 65 percent of Thorin's genome were recovered from a molar, Sikora says. Thorin's DNA was then compared with DNA previously extracted from other Neandertals, ancient H. sapiens and present-day people.

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