As for why the percentage of Neanderthal DNA in some modern humans still appears to be so low, Kelso explained that there was selection against such genes in
early modern human populations.
Rapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the Middle Stone Age, sparked surges in cultural innovation in
early modern human populations, according to new research.
Not exact matches
«The initial dispersals out of Africa prior to 60,000 years ago were likely by small groups of foragers, and at least some of these
early dispersals left low - level genetic traces in
modern human populations.
«The morphology of the skull indicates that it is that of a
modern human of African origin, bearing characteristics of
early European Upper Palaeolithic
populations.
While it is widely accepted that the origins of
modern humans date back some 200,000 years to Africa, there has been furious debate as to which model of
early Homo sapiens migration most plausibly led to the
population of the planet — and the eventual extinction of Neanderthals.
While fossil records prove that some anatomically
modern human groups reached the Levantine corridor (the
modern Middle East) as
early as 100,000 years ago, genetic testing indicates that
human populations inhabiting the globe today descended from a single group that migrated from Africa only 70,000 years ago — an unexplained gap of 30,000 years.
«This means that
modern humans emerged
earlier than previously thought,» says Mattias Jakobsson,
population geneticist at Uppsala University who headed the project together with Stone Age archaeologist Marlize Lombard at the University of Johannesburg.
Early modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, but thanks to our bigger
population evolution has purged out many of the deleterious genes we acquired this way
Analyzing 379 new genomes from 125
populations worldwide, the group concludes that at least 2 % of the genomes of people from Papua New Guinea comes from an
early dispersal of
modern humans, who left Africa perhaps 120,000 years ago.
«This is exciting because we now have a proven resource that could finally bring definitive answers to fundamental questions about the
early movements and conditions of
human populations — and new information about the importance of vitamin D for modern populations,» says McMaster anthropologist Megan Brickley, lead author of the paper and Canada Research Chair in the Bioarchaeology of Human Dis
human populations — and new information about the importance of vitamin D for
modern populations,» says McMaster anthropologist Megan Brickley, lead author of the paper and Canada Research Chair in the Bioarchaeology of
Human Dis
Human Disease.
In contradiction to this theory is archaeological evidence to suggest
early modern humans had already expanded beyond Africa by this time (22) and that the eruption of the YTT did not disturb the behavior of
populations inhabiting peninsular India (12).
Studies show that the San carry some of the most divergent (oldest) Y - chromosome haplogroups, specific sub-groups of A and B, the two
earliest branches on the
human Y - chromosome tree, suggesting they may be descendents of a
population ancestral to all
modern humans.
This paper was chosen as a feature highlight because it explores one of the
early questions in the field of
human population genetics: the whereabouts of the expansion out of Africa that brought
modern humans to colonize the rest of the world in the last ~ 60,000 years.
The
modern human sequences in the Altai Neanderthal appear to derive from a group of
modern human ancestors from Africa that separated
early from other
humans, about the time present - day African
populations diverged from one another, around 200,000 years ago.