Neanderthals Mated With Humans Outside of Africa

Science • July 2011 • Views: 1,240

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal’s Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center and team have found part of the human X chromosome comes from the Neanderthals and is found only in people outside of Africa.

In a paper published in the July issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, the geneticists write: “We provide evidence of a notable presence (nine percent overall) of a Neanderthal-derived X chromosome segment among all contemporary human populations outside Africa”. The team analyzed 6,092 X-chromosomes “from all inhabited continents”. Their discovery confirms earlier hypotheses that early modern man and Neanderthals mixed and mated.

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4 comments

Achilles Tang Mon, Jul 18, 2011 1:09:12pm

This raises some interesting questions however.

On the one hand mating requires close genetic origins so Neanderthals had to originally also come from Africa, and be related to the Africans with which they originally mated. They could not have evolved separately somewhere else. So how much earlier did they arrive from Africa than the fairly well established main migration some 100,000 years ago?

On the other hand this may develop into an argument that non Africans are genetically significantly distinct from Africans, in spite of much evidence to the contrary, and be fodder for racists.

I would guess that more complete Neanderthal genome analysis may answer this eventually.

Decatur Deb Mon, Jul 18, 2011 1:12:14pm

Just talking about different waves of migration out of Africa. There's not much serious anthro disagreement that we all came out of there in at least two major fluxes.

Achilles Tang Mon, Jul 18, 2011 2:20:14pm

re: #2 Decatur Deb

Going from memory, I believe there was one into the Middle East (and branching out from there) and possibly a second more eastwards to India and beyond, but all post Neanderthal. One would guess that there had to be another prior, possibly long prior, that gave time for Neanderthals to arise, but I have not seen any speculation on when that could have been.

If we can get a complete enough genome eventually that can probably be answered.

Decatur Deb Mon, Jul 18, 2011 2:25:58pm

re: #3 Naso Tang

Going from memory, I believe there was one into the Middle East (and branching out from there) and possibly a second more eastwards to India and beyond, but all post Neanderthal. One would guess that there had to be another prior, possibly long prior, that gave time for Neanderthals to arise, but I have not seen any speculation on when that could have been.

If we can get a complete enough genome eventually that can probably be answered.

Been away from it for a long time, but I was actually thinking of a very early move into SE Asia. Realistically, there would have been several 'pulses' of migration, as environmental conditions demanded/permitted. (Got into the Tabun cave, a sort of "beach-bum Neanderthal" occupation.)

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