There Were Far More Neanderthals Than Previously Thought

[Judi Lynn]

There Were Far More Neanderthals Than Previously Thought


What we thought we knew about the Neanderthals may have been wrong. It seems there were many more of our heavy-browed cousins than archaeological evidence suggests, and they most likely occurred as a species far earlier than anyone had thought.

A new study has delved deeply into the genetics of Neanderthals, the arcane Denisovans, and ourselves, to better understand how all three species relate to each other. They found that despite the low genetic diversity suggesting that there may have only been a few thousand Neanderthals stalking the forests of Eurasia, this is likely an error relating to how the species lived, and that it was much more probable that there were tens of thousands living in small fragmented populations.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was able to reveal a number of new findings about the history of Neanderthals over the past million years. Amazingly, they were able to see that the lineage that would eventually give rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans splitting from our own ancestors – which is thought to have happened when Homo erectus migrated from Africa – very nearly went extinct.

If this had happened, it would have meant that Neanderthals would never have come to dominate Europe, and when our own species eventually made it out of Africa, we would have found a distinctly different landscape, empty of many other hominins we now know were flourishing.

More:
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/there-were-far-more-neanderthals-than-previously-thought/