Ancient DNA is revealing new insights into the genetic relationship between Pleistocene hominins and modern humans. Nuclear DNA indicated Neanderthals as a sister group of Denisovans after diverging from modern humans. However, the closer affinity of the Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to modern humans than Denisovans has recently been suggested as the result of gene flow from an African ...

Studies of the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes demonstrate archaic hominin introgression in Eurasians. Here, we present evidence of Neanderthal introgression within the chromosome 3p21.31 region, occurring with a high frequency in East Asians (ranging from 49.4% to 66.5%) and at a low frequency in Europeans. We also detected a signal of strong positive selection in this region only in East As...

Project background During the course of evolution, the human brain has undergone tremendous expansion. This has led to the development of complex neurocircuits of unmatched complexity, highly social behaviour, expanded language use and cognitive superiority. A small number of infants, however, are born with significantly smaller brains, a condition called primary microcephaly (PM). Infants with...

T diversity and intricacy of current analyses and the advancement of our understanding of the chronology, paleobiology, and cultural adaptations of the Neanderthals is quite remarkable when we consider that it has been but 150 years since the first Neanderthal fossils were recovered from the now famous Neander Valley outside Düsseldorf in western Germany. Furthermore, our vision of the cultural...

Following the recent availability of high-coverage genomes for Denisovan and Neanderthal hominids, we conducted a screen for endogenized retroviruses, identifying six novel, previously unreported HERV-K(HML2) elements (HERV-K is human endogenous retrovirus K). These elements are absent from the human genome (hg38) and appear to be unique to archaic hominids. These findings provide further evide...

Ten years of research about the Neanderthal’s subsistence behaviour are presented. The study of large mammal bones is now recognized as a means of understanding subsistence behaviour (sensu lato), notably by analysing acquisition and processing strategies, as well as patterns of consumption. This paper summarizes the results of an analysis of a corpus of data from several European countries, re...

That modern humans have a relatively ancient origin has been suggested on the basis of fossil and genetic evidence. But DNA sequences from an extinct neanderthal, and phylogenetic analyses of hundreds of human and ape sequences, continue to support a recent origin for modern humans.