translated from Spanish: Scientific study found that Neanderthals were routinely mixed with modern humans

An international research team involving scientists from the National Centre for Human Research (Cenieh), based in the Spanish city of Burgos, concludes that interstestation between Neanderthals and the first modern humans who arrived in Europe was commonplace. The Cenieh reported on Wednesday the publication of a scientific paper signed by that team in the journal Nature, focusing on the oldest modern humans in Europe who inhabited the Bacho Kiro cave in Dryanovo, Bulgaria, on their genetic contribution to current East Asians and neanderthal mestizage. The study identified long sections of Homo Neanderthalensis DNA in the genomes of the inhabitants of this Bulgarian cave, demonstrating that they had Neanderthal ancestors between five and seven generations old. The authors conclude in the article that when the first modern humans arrived in Europe, mestizaje with Neanderthals “was the norm, not the exception”. This research began when a team led by scientists from the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum, at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, they discovered remains of modern humans in direct association with stone utensils from the initial Upper Paleolithic at the Bacho cave site Kiro.La direct radiocarbon dating of the oldest remains found in the cave tossed a date of between 43,000 and 46,000 years. Therefore, it is the first known dispersion of modern humans through the mid-latitudes of Eurasia.The first inhabitants of Bacho Kiro lived at a time when Neanderthals were still present. Therefore, the researchers scanned their genomes for Neanderthal DNA and discovered that the individuals in that cave had higher levels of Neanderthal origin than almost any other primitive human, except for an individual about 40,000 years ago found in the Pestera cu Oase cave, in Rumanía.La most of this Neanderthal DNA appears in extremely long sections ” which shows that about five or seven generations ago these individuals had Neanderthal ancestors,” says Mateja Hajdinjak, the lead author of this work. Although only a few genomes of modern humans who lived at the same time as some of the last Neanderthals in Eurasia have recovered, almost all of them have recent Neanderthal ancestors.” The results suggest that the first modern humans who arrived in Eurasia were routinely mixed with Neanderthals, even though they may have been absorbed by resident Neanderthal populations, although larger groups of modern humans arrived and replaced neanderthals,” explains Svante Pebo, coordinator of genetic research. Until now it was thought that humans of the early Upper Paleolithic died without contributing to the genome of modern humans. However, researchers now showed that older individuals in Bacho Kiro Cave, or groups more related to such individuals, contributed their genes to today’s humans.” Surprisingly, this contribution is given mainly in East Asia and America, more than in Europe, where the inhabitants of Bacho Kiro Cave lived,” notes Mateja Hajdinjak.This genetic link with Asia reflects the observed relationships between the lithic tools and personal ornaments of the initial Upper Paleolithic, found in this cave, and the tools and jewels found throughout Eurasia.In addition , the last individual found (about 35,000 years old) belonged to a genetically different group from the previous inhabitants of the cave, demonstrating that the first steps of modern humans in Europe were tumultuous and subjected to population replacements. Prior to this study, the first modern humans of the Romanian cave Pestera cu Oase were those with the highest degree of interstem between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis to date.” We now see that they were not the only ones and that the advances made in dating methods and genetic research have allowed us to know the chronology and dynamics of the first modern humans to a level that, a few years ago, was inconceivable,” says geochronologist Silviu Constantin of Cenieh.This researcher indirectly gave Romanian specimens using the uranium series method (U-Th) , and directed geological research at Pestera cu Oase, used as comparative material in this study. For her part, Oana Teodora Moldovan, a researcher associated with Cenieh, was the first to recognize the value of the hybrid human specimens of this Romanian site and to carry out the initial excavations.



Original source in Spanish

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