DNA reveals a European Neandertal lineage that lasted 80,000 years

[Sanguine]

Fossils from caves in Belgium and Germany provided DNA from these extinct hominids
By  Bruce Bower
2:00pm, June 26, 2019

DEEP ROOTS  Fossil jaws and teeth of a Neandertal child who lived around 120,000 years ago in what’s now Belgium provided DNA displaying close links to European Neandertals from 40,000 years ago.

J. Eloy/AWEM, © Archéologie andennaise



Neandertals had evolutionary stamina. An unbroken genetic line of the jut-jawed, powerfully built human relatives inhabited Europe for at least 80,000 years until dying out around 40,000 years ago, scientists say.

DNA extracted from fossils of two roughly 120,000-year-old European Neandertals displays closer genetic links to 40,000-year-old European Neandertals than to a Siberian Neandertal who also lived around 120,000 years ago, say paleogeneticist Stéphane Peyrégne and colleagues. Later Neandertals in Europe and western Asia trace at least part of their ancestry back to Neandertals represented by the newly isolated DNA, the researchers conclude online June 26 in Science Advances.

Evidence of European Neandertals’ genetic endurance starting about 120,000 years ago “fits nicely in the fossil record,” says paleogeneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, who did not participate in the new study. Ages of several early European Neandertal fossils fall at or near 120,000 years ago, he says....

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