Neandertal Extinction Isn’t What We Thought
Neandertals were previously thought by scientists to have existed in Europe as one unified genetic line, but a new study suggests that they actually followed two distinct genetic lines, questioning previous assumptions about how they died out. This bolsters the developing understanding that, rather than a single event causing a mass Neandertal extinction, there were likely much more complicated factors along their evolutionary path that led to the species’ demise.
A study conducted by Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier in France and the University of Copenhagen found that genetic differences between a newly discovered Neandertal skeleton and others previously discovered in Europe showed distinct genetics.
New Neandertal Debunks Prevailing Theories
The evolution of hominids has more recently been understood more like a river with many tributaries and bifurcations, leading humanoid mammals down a winding path to where we are now, with Homo Sapiens as the last surviving hominid. However, until now, it was believed that the Neandertal population in Europe, which became extinct around 40,000 years ago, was of a single evolutionary group.
The discovery of a Neandertal named Thorin by researchers in France has debunked this version of hominid history, showing that it’s more likely there were two genetically distinct groups of Neandertals in Europe right up until their extinction.
Another Branch Of Human Eovlution
Researchers led by Ludovic Slimak and Martin Sikora were able to extract DNA from the specimen’s molar and compare it to DNA from contemporary Neandertals and Homo Sapiens, as well as modern humans. Thorin’s DNA aligned more closely with other Neandertal specimens that lived around 100,000 years ago than with others in Europe from around 40,000 years ago, when Thorin is believed to have lived.
This discovery suggests that two unconnected groups of Neandertals must have existed in Europe for about 50,000 years before they became extinct.
Isolated For Generations
Thorin’s DNA has many identical and repeating segments that are signs of a very small population and interbreeding between close relatives, but it also shows no signs of cross-breeding either with other Neandertals or with Homo Sapiens. This suggests that the group Thorin came from was isolated from other hominids of their time. This revelation throws a wrench in the works of previous understandings of Neandertal extinction as being an occurrence in a single group.
Multiple Isolated Groups
While this new discovery shows that there may have been multiple isolated groups of Neandertals in Europe concurrently, there’s still no evidence of why the group remained isolated. Anthropologists have posited that language differences or cultural divergences could have caused the isolation, but there’s no verification of this hypothesis as of yet. While the group existed concurrently with the previously discovered group, they remained isolated but still remained within the understood timeline for Neandertal extinction.
50,000 Years Old
Thorin’s bones, as well as the bones of animals buried nearby, were tested in several ways to determine their age, and the position of the remains indicates, along with this testing, that he lived 50,000 and 42,000 years ago.
If that’s true, there’s a new branch of evolutionary history to explore and a new understanding of Neanderthal extinction to study. If it turns out that the dating methods used to determine the age of the remains weren’t accurate, it could be that Thorin was part of an earlier group of hominids who died out much earlier.
Source: Cell Genomics
