Sociability has been key to the survival of modern humans, an ability that new research shows Neanderthals lacked and likely led to their extinction 40,000 years ago.
According to RCO News Agency, New genetic evidence from a cave in France suggests that Neanderthals were more reclusive and preferred to interact only with each other. Meanwhile, modern humans are more likely to communicate with other groups and exchange ideas, which is an evolutionary advantage for survival.
According to SF, archaeologists have discussed the reason for the destruction of the Neanderthal species. A new study published in the journal Cell Genomics supports the theory that the downfall of Neanderthals was not due to environmental changes or disease, but to their antisocial lifestyle.
This is something we’ve been talking about for a while. But we needed more evidence, and this is some of the evidence we looked for and needed to understand how likely they were to become extinct because of their isolated lifestyle.
Researchers discovered a tooth from a Neanderthal man in a cave in southern France, giving them a rare opportunity to study the genes left on the samples. Discovering the genetic information of Neanderthals has always been a challenge. Although Neanderthal remains have been found throughout Eurasia, there has never been enough DNA for genetic analysis. One of the oldest samples of Neanderthal DNA dates back to 120,000 years ago in the Altai Mountains of Belgium and Germany.
The authors took these new DNA samples to examine the Neanderthal nuclear genome. The nuclear genome is the DNA found in the nucleus of cells. The nuclear genome information was compared with other Neanderthal genomes to get a better look at their ancient lifestyle.
The new Neanderthal genome was about 50,000 years old. Furthermore, this was only the fifth specimen in Western Europe, showing how isolated this particular group of Neanderthals was.
Martin Sikora, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, says: The genome of the newly discovered Neanderthals is from a different lineage than other Neanderthals that have been studied before. This supports the idea that the social organization of Neanderthals differed from that of early modern humans, who appeared to be more connected.
A striking observation that the researchers made when analyzing the genetic remains of Neanderthal males was that there was not much genetic variation.
The low genetic diversity of Neanderthals contrasts with that of early modern humans. This suggests that early modern humans interacted more with other human species, which served as an evolutionary advantage for survival. According to the authors, contact with other groups helped increase genetic diversity and exchange knowledge and ideas for early modern humans.
The researchers also examined the genome of another Neanderthal from France. The ancestry of this person was from a different Neanderthal lineage than what was found in the cave. The distinct genomes of both Neanderthals suggest that these humans were alien to other human species in Western Europe until the extinction.
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