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27 High-Quality Neanderthal Genomes Show Large, Genetically Healthy Groups in Europe 45,000 Years Ago
@ScienceMagazine reported that analysis of 27 high-quality genomes from Western Europe found Neanderthals were genetically healthy and lived in large, connected groups near the end of their existence. The findings challenge the hypothesis that inbreeding in isolated populations caused harmful mutations leading to extinction.
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Researchers analyzing 27 high-quality Neanderthal genomes from Western Europe found that the species was genetically healthy and lived in large, well-connected groups approximately 45,000 years ago, though it disappeared from the region within several thousand years.
@ScienceMagazine reported that the data strike out the hypothesis that harmful mutations from inbreeding in tiny, isolated populations contributed to the species' disappearance. Neanderthals had survived for hundreds of thousands of years in Eurasia, hunting woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses and harvesting edible grasses, tubers, and legumes.
Why they perished has long been a mystery.
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