Unearthing Neanderthal population history using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from cave sediments

Benjamin Vernot*, Elena I. Zavala, Asier Gómez-Olivencia, Zenobia Jacobs, Viviane Slon, Fabrizio Mafessoni, Frédéric Romagné, Alice Pearson, Martin Petr, Nohemi Sala, Adrián Pablos, Arantza Aranbur, José Mariá Bermúdez De Castro, Eudald Carbonell, Bo Li, MacIej T. Krajcarz, Andrey I. Krivoshapkin, Kseniya A. Kolobova, Maxim B. Kozlikin, Michael V. ShunkovAnatoly P. Derevianko, Bence Viola, Steffi Grote, Elena Essel, David López Herraéz, Sarah Nagel, Birgit Nickel, Julia Richter, Anna Schmidt, Benjamin Peter, Janet Kelso, Richard G. Roberts, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Matthias Meyer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

96 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bones and teeth are important sources of Pleistocene hominin DNA, but are rarely recovered at archaeological sites. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been retrieved from cave sediments but provides limited value for studying population relationships. We therefore developed methods for the enrichment and analysis of nuclear DNA from sediments and applied them to cave deposits in western Europe and southern Siberia dated to between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. We detected a population replacement in northern Spain about 100,000 years ago, which was accompanied by a turnover of mtDNA. We also identified two radiation events in Neanderthal history during the early part of the Late Pleistocene. Our work lays the ground for studying the population history of ancient hominins from trace amounts of nuclear DNA in sediments.

Original languageEnglish
Article number590
JournalScience
Volume372
Issue number6542
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 May 2021

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