A new study indicates that Neanderthals formed small communities with close relationships in which women possibly traveled to live with their partners.
The researchers used the DNA for an unusual picture of Neanderthal family dynamics: including a father and his teenage daughter in Siberia more than 50,000 years ago.
The researchers were able to extract DNA from small bone fragments found in two Russian caves. According to the study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the genetic data was used to deduce the relationships between 13 Neanderthal individuals and obtain clues about their life.
“When I work with a bone or two, it’s very easy to forget that these are people with their lives and stories,” said Bence Viola, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto. “Discovering how they relate to each other makes them much more human“.
Our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals, lived in Europe and Asia for thousands of years. They became extinct 40,000 years ago, when our species, Homo sapiens, arrived in Europe from Africa.
Recently, scientists have been able to extract the DNA of these early humans.
Svante Saabo, a recent Nobel laureate—who is one of the paper’s authors—published the first draft of a Neanderthal genome just over a decade ago. DSince then, scientists have sequenced 18 Neanderthal genomes.said the study’s lead author, Laurits Skov, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
However, it is unusual to find bones from many Neanderthals in one place at one time, he added. That is why these discoveries in the caves were so important.
The caves, located on remote hillsides, have been a source of materials, from stone tools to fossils, Viola added. They may have been a temporary hunting residence for Neanderthals, as they offer a great view of the migratory herds in the valley.
Archaeologists have found the remains of at least a dozen Neanderthals, Viola said. These remains are usually small pieces, “a finger bone here, a tooth there,” but scientists can extract DNA from them.
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Several relatives could be identified in the group. Along with the father and daughter, they found another couple, perhaps a boy and his aunt or a couple of close cousins.
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