Neanderthals in central Asia and Siberia
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Morphological traits typical of Neanderthals began to appear in European hominids at least 400,000 years ago and about 150,000 years ago in western Asia. After their initial appearance, such traits increased in frequency and the extent to which they are expressed until they disappeared shortly after 30,000 years ago. However, because most fossil hominid remains are fragmentary, it can be difficult or impossible to determine unambiguously whether a fossil is of Neanderthal origin. This limits the ability to determine when and where Neanderthals lived. To determine how far to the east Neanderthals ranged, we determined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from hominid remains found in Uzbekistan and in the Altai region of southern Siberia. Here we show that the DNA sequences from these fossils fall within the European Neanderthal mtDNA variation. Thus, the geographic range of Neanderthals is likely to have extended at least 2,000 km further to the east than commonly assumed.
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Neanderthal ancestry is higher in northern Eurasia than in southern Eurasia.
“Moreover, our results showing more NE ancestry in northern Eurasia than in southern Eurasia further concur with evidence of NE presence in the northern Himalayas (14), even if an undetected presence in the south cannot be ruled out.”
From Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
The currently known geographic distribution of Neanderthals was almost exclusively in the western part of Eurasia.
“This observation is unexpected since the currently known geographic distribution of NEs was almost exclusively in the western part of Eurasia (14).”
From Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
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- Authors
- Krause, J., Orlando, L., Serre, D., Viola, B., Prüfer, K., Richards, M. P., Hublin, J.-J., Hänni, C., Derevianko, A. P., & Pääbo, S.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Lyon 1 Université (FR)
- McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre (CA)
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Russian Academy of Sciences (RU)
- Corresponding author
- Pääbo, Svante
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2007-09-30
- Volume
- 449
- Issue
- 7164
- Pages
- 902-904
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2159623297
- Cited by
- 333
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 24
- FWCI
- 128.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- reroDoc Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- Neanderthals, mitochondrial DNA, hominid fossils, Altai region, Siberia, Central Asia, Neanderthal origins, Neanderthal extinction, fossil identification
- MeSH terms
- Age Determination by Skeleton, Animals, Child, DNA, Mitochondrial, Europe, Fossils, Geography, Humans, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Siberia, Skeleton, Uzbekistan, Hominidae, Polymerase Chain Reaction, History, Ancient
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