Cited by 802Pleistocene-Era Hominins and ArchaeologyForensic and Genetic ResearchGenetic diversity and population structure

An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor

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Fu, Qiaomei, Hajdinjak, Mateja, Moldovan, Oana Teodora, Constantin, Silviu, Mallick, Swapan, Skoglund, Pontus, Patterson, Nick, Rohland, Nadin +8 more·2015·Nature

Abstract

Neanderthals are thought to have disappeared in Europe approximately 39,000-41,000 years ago but they have contributed 1-3% of the DNA of present-day people in Eurasia. Here we analyse DNA from a 37,000-42,000-year-old modern human from Peştera cu Oase, Romania. Although the specimen contains small amounts of human DNA, we use an enrichment strategy to isolate sites that are informative about its relationship to Neanderthals and present-day humans. We find that on the order of 6-9% of the genome of the Oase individual is derived from Neanderthals, more than any other modern human sequenced to date. Three chromosomal segments of Neanderthal ancestry are over 50 centimorgans in size, indicating that this individual had a Neanderthal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back. However, the Oase individual does not share more alleles with later Europeans than with East Asians, suggesting that the Oase population did not contribute substantially to later humans in Europe.

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  1. [21]Trinkaus E Life and Death at the Peştera cu Oase. A Setting for Modern Human Emergence in Europe Oxford University Press 2013

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Authors
Fu, Q., Hajdinjak, M., Moldovan, O. T., Constantin, S., Mallick, S., Skoglund, P., Patterson, N., Rohland, N., Lazaridis, I., Nickel, B., Viola, B., Prüfer, K., Meyer, M., Kelso, J., Reich, D., & Pääbo, S.
Affiliations
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
  • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
  • Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology (RO)
  • Broad Institute (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • University of Toronto (CA)
Corresponding author
  • Reich, David
  • Pääbo, Svante
Venue
Nature
Published
2015-06-22
Volume
524
Issue
7564
Pages
216-219
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W1437671111
Cited by
802
References
41
Citations by year
2026: 42 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 70 · 2023: 86 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 112 · 2020: 68 · 2019: 66 · 2018: 97 · 2017: 75 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 16
FWCI
341.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM100233, R01GM100233)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
Keywords
Neanderthal admixture, early modern humans, Neanderthal ancestry, Neanderthal DNA
MeSH terms
Alleles, Animals, Asia, Eastern, Fossils, Humans, Hybridization, Genetic, Indians, North American, Male, Phylogeny, Romania, Time Factors, Genome, Human, Sequence Analysis, DNA, White People, Asian People, Neanderthals

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