Enlarge / Inside of the Vindija Cave, Croatia. (credit: M. Hajdinjak)
Mezmaiskaya Cave offered shelter to Neanderthals for tens of thousands of years. The cave, located near Russia’s border with Georgia, preserved Neanderthal remains so well that researchers have now been able to extract genetic information from two different individuals who lived approximately 20,000 years apart. And it’s just one of the sites that’s featured in a new collection of Neanderthal genomes: two from caves in Belgium, one from France, one from Croatia, and one from Mezmaiskaya.
As scientists publish more Neanderthal genomes, they’re able to start sketching more details of the long-ago drama and danger these people experienced. The new genomes are all from 39,000 to 47,000 years ago—late in the history of the population. The new data helps us piece together new details on Neanderthal population groups, their movements across Europe, and when they’re most likely to have bred with humans.
Replacement
The researchers, led by Mateja Hajdinjak at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, extracted tiny amounts of bone or tooth powder—sometimes as little as 9mg—and used a chemical process to remove modern genetic contamination. They also checked for the telltale signs of degradation found in ancient DNA.
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