Top Fossil Provides Complete Neanderthal Genome. By Carl Zimmer. New York Times, December 18, 2013.
Archaic humans: Four makes a party. By Ewan Birney and Jonathan K. Pritchard. Nature, published online, December 18, 2013.
The complete genome sequence of Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains. By Kay Prüfer et al. Nature, published online, December 18, 2013.
Abstract:
We
present a high-quality genome sequence of a Neanderthal woman from Siberia. We
show that her parents were related at the level of half-siblings and that
mating among close relatives was common among her recent ancestors. We also
sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal from the Caucasus to low coverage. An
analysis of the relationships and population history of available archaic
genomes and 25 present-day human genomes shows that several gene flow events
occurred among Neanderthals, Denisovans and early modern humans, possibly
including gene flow into Denisovans from an unknown archaic group. Thus,
interbreeding, albeit of low magnitude, occurred among many hominin groups in
the Late Pleistocene. In addition, the high-quality Neanderthal genome allows
us to establish a definitive list of substitutions that became fixed in modern
humans after their separation from the ancestors of Neanderthals and
Denisovans.