While Neanderthals went extinct approximately 40,000 years ago, they left a legacy hidden inside the genetic codes of humans, in the form of traces of their Neanderthal DNA. Even though Neanderthals occupying the Eurasian landmass had been separated from Homo sapiens for a long time, the two species were still able to interbreed for a few thousand years after modern humans began arriving in large numbers from Africa 70,000 years ago.
But there are some curious facts about this Neanderthal DNA, the main one being its lack of equal distribution among modern-day population groups. The precise percentage of Neanderthal DNA found in humans varies across regions, with it being more prevalent in the genomes of Asian populations compared to their European counterparts.
This unequal distribution has long puzzled scientists. But new research carried out by geneticists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has finally shed some light on the discrepancy. The results of their painstaking statistical analyses of ancient and modern human DNA, which have just been released in a study published in the journal Science Advances , detail variations in interbreeding patterns in both time and space that provide fresh insight into the fascinating shared history of two hominin species that lived side by side for tens of thousands of years.
The new study has analyzed why Neanderthal DNA is unequally distributed between modern Asian and European Homo sapien populations. ( Bartek / Adobe Stock)
