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The research was led by an international team headed by the University of T\u00fcbingen<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The researchers analyzed ten newly sequenced mitochondrial DNA samples from Neanderthal remains found in Belgium, France, Germany, and Serbia. These were compared with 49 previously published samples.<\/p>\n The experts were able to trace shifts in Neanderthal diversity, movement, and decline in far greater detail than before.<\/p>\n A long-running mystery<\/p>\n Neanderthals<\/a> first appeared roughly 300,000 years ago and spread widely across Europe and into parts of Asia. Even so, many basic questions about their population history have remained unsettled.<\/p>\n Thorsten Uthmeier is an expert in prehistoric archaeology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen-N\u00fcrnberg (FAU<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe still don\u2019t have a comprehensive understanding of Neanderthal population history, nor of the demographic processes that led to their extinction,\u201d said Uthmeier.<\/p>\n \u201cMaps of archaeological sites suggest that an event occurred during the last glacial period that caused a rapid decline in the geographic distribution and genetic diversity<\/a> of the early population.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was believed that only a small group survived and that all later Neanderthals descended from this group. In genetics, such processes are referred to as \u2018bottlenecks\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The team focused on mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, which is often especially useful in archaeology because it is more abundant and easier to recover from ancient remains than nuclear DNA.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mtDNA samples do not come from the cell nucleus, but rather from the mitochondria<\/a> \u2013 single-celled structures that regulate a cell\u2019s energy metabolism and have their own DNA,\u201d Uthmeier explained.<\/p>\n Reading ancient lineages<\/p>\n One of the newly analyzed samples came from a Neanderthal fetus discovered back in 1968 at Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Germany\u2019s Altm\u00fchl Valley. That specimen turned out to be especially important for the bigger story.<\/p>\n From these samples, the researchers were able to identify lineages and compare how closely related different Neanderthal groups were to one another across time and space.<\/p>\n \u201cmtDNA mutates much less frequently than nuclear DNA, which plays a key role in determining our appearance and physical constitution, among other things,\u201d Uthmeier said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, the degree of diversification in the mtDNA samples provides an insight into how closely related the Neanderthal groups \u2013 from which the bone and tooth fossils originate \u2013 were to one another.\u201d<\/p>\n That kind of work was possible because newer methods can now decode highly degraded genetic material that used to be almost impossible to study. The researchers were also able to estimate the age of some samples directly from genetic data alone.<\/p>\n Conventional dating methods do not work well for every ancient remain<\/a>. In this case, combining genetic comparison with age estimation helped the team reconstruct a much clearer timeline of late Neanderthal history.<\/p>\n A refuge in southwestern France<\/p>\n The results suggest that the last major bottleneck happened around 65,000 years ago. Before that, the Neanderthal population seems to have been far more widespread and diverse.<\/p>\n \u201cAs recently as 130,000 years ago, Neanderthals were widespread throughout Western Eurasia, predominantly in what is now northern Germany and Belgium,\u201d Uthmeier said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere were isolated groups in the Caucasus, and even one in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia.\u201d<\/p>\n Over time, though, both their genetic diversity and their geographic spread appear to have shrunk. The study suggests that their core population shifted toward southwestern France, which may have acted as a refugium during a particularly harsh climatic phase.<\/p>\n \u201cWe suspect that the climatic conditions 65,000\u221260,000 years ago, a very cold and dry period, triggered the retreat to this refugium and the extinction of the remaining Neanderthal lineages,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n After that, Neanderthals seem to have spread outward again. But by then, almost all later groups appear to have descended from that reduced population centered in southwestern France.<\/p>\n This event may have fundamentally reshaped the genetic makeup of the Neanderthals who came afterward.<\/p>\n Unusual lineage was widespread<\/p>\n There was, however, an unexpected complication. In Mandrin Cave in the Rh\u00f4ne Valley, inside what would have been the refugium, archaeologists found a Neanderthal skeleton known as Thorin. <\/p>\n His mitochondrial DNA looked very different from that of the other known survivors of the bottleneck.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil recently, it was thought that Thorin belonged to an isolated group that had remained in a very small area,\u201d Uthmeier explained.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, the genetic analysis now conducted has shown that the fetus from the Sesselfelsgrotte in the Altm\u00fchl Valley, whose remains date from a similar period, was also related to this group.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Thorin line was apparently more widespread than previously thought. This finding really surprised us.\u201d<\/p>\n This finding suggests that this apparently unusual lineage was not as isolated as it first seemed. Instead, it may have been spread across a much larger area than anyone realized.<\/p>\n The final decline<\/p>\n The study also offers fresh clues about the final chapter of Neanderthal history.<\/p>\n \u201cThe combination of DNA analysis and age dating has revealed that a sharp decline in population size began around 45,000 years ago,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n The researchers argue it is still unclear exactly what caused their extinction around 3,000 years later. There may not have been one single cause.<\/p>\n Differences in social networks may have mattered and so may the arrival and spread of Homo sapiens sapiens across Europe. Competition, climate pressure, and demographic weakness may all have played a role.<\/p>\n There is also the possibility that some of the last Neanderthals were partly absorbed into modern human populations through interbreeding<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cModern humans and Neanderthals were capable of interbreeding, which is why we still carry a small percent of Neanderthal DNA in us today,\u201d Uthmeier concluded.<\/p>\n The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neanderthals once lived across a huge stretch of Eurasia, from western Europe to southern Siberia.\u00a0 But a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":{"0":"post-402088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}