Advances in contemporary genetic science have reshaped the narratives whereby individuals and communities make sense of their personal, family, communal histories. In this process, unknown connections been revealed familiar orthodoxies disrupted. This essay examines consequences a particularly unusual revelation—the dawning awareness presence nonhuman archaic human DNA lines—for efforts at writ...

The availability of sequences from the mtDNA hypervariable region I and II of a specimen of the Neanderthal,1,2 Homo neanderthalensis, permits estimation of the time of divergence of Neanderthals and modern humans. Based on substitution rates derived from comparison of human and chimpanzee, Krings et al. provided an estimate of 550–690 KY1 and 317–741 KY2 before present for the split between th...

We report here the first results of a method to extract and sequence mature enamel proteins from modern human and Neanderthal tooth enamel. Using MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry and a combination of direct sequencing and peptide mass mapping we have sequenced a peptide from the tyrosine-rich amelogenin peptide (TRAP) of the X isoform of the amelogenin protein for modern and recent human samples...

We present a Neanderthal maxilla (CF-1) from Cova Foradà site (Oliva, Valencia, Spain) with periodontal disease and evidence of attempts to alleviate pain with the use of a toothpick. Two interproximal grooves have been found on the distal surfaces of the upper left Pm(3) and M(1) of CF-1 maxilla. The location, morphology and size of the grooves coincide with other interproximal grooves found o...

A simple mathematical homogeneous model of competition is used to describe Neanderthal extinction in Europe. It considers two interacting species, Neanderthals and Early Modern Men, in the same ecological niche. Using paleontological data we claim that the parameter of similarity, between both species, fluctuates between 0.992 and 0.997. An extension of the model including migration (diffusion)...

We present an evaluation of the laser ablation Sr isotope data reported by Richards et al. (2008) for a Neanderthal tooth recovered from a site in Greece. Based on an alternative and analytically more robust method of correcting for isobaric interferences present during the analysis the tooth appears to be isotopically homogenous and within uncertainty of the value for modern seawater. If this ...