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Shortly after Swedish research scientist Svante Paabo’s work in the field of Neanderthal genome sequencing was awarded the Nobel Prize, a new study revealed important findings about the social organisation of the primates.
Neanderthals were a species of humans that went extinct around 30,000 years ago. For the first time, a team of researchers led by Dr. Laurits Skov of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany (the same institute of which Dr. Paabo is the director) has sequenced genetic data from 13 Neanderthal individuals from two sites in Siberia.
Researchers identified multiple related individuals from this group – a father and his teenage daughter, and a pair of second-degree relatives – a young boy and an adult female (possibly an aunt, cousin or grandmother).
The new study focused on the Neanderthal remains in Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov Caves, which are located very close to the Denisova Cave in Siberia. According to the Max Planck Institute, these sites were briefly occupied by Neanderthals around 54,000 years ago.
The mitochondrial DNA retrieved from the remains of Neanderthals showed shared heteroplasmies – genetic variance that can be transmitted from mother to child and typically persist for less than three generations. Their presence in different remains would indicate that they come from the same or maternally closely related individuals.
“The fact that they were living at the same time is very exciting. This means that they likely came from the same social community. So, for the first time, we can use genetics to study the social organization of a Neanderthal community,” Dr. Skov was quoted as saying.
The study also found extremely low genetic diversity within this Neanderthal community, suggesting they lived in a group of 10-20 individuals. Comparing genetic diversity on the Y-chromosome (inherited father-to-son) with the mitochondrial DNA diversity (inherited from mothers), it was found that Neanderthal communities were primarily linked by female migration.
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Published - October 26, 2022 11:48 am IST
