Multiple episodes of interbreeding between Neanderthal and modern humans.

ABSTRACT: Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans overlapped geographically for a period of over 30,000 years following human migration out of Africa. During this period, Neanderthals and humans interbred, as evidenced by Neanderthal portions of the genome carried by non-African individuals today. A key observation is that the proportion of Neanderthal ancestry is ~12-20% higher in East Asian individuals relative to European individuals. Here, we explore various demographic models that could explain this observation. These include distinguishing between a single admixture event and multiple Neanderthal contributions to either population, and the hypothesis that reduced Neanderthal ancestry in modern Europeans resulted from more recent admixture with a ghost population that lacked a Neanderthal a

SUBMITTER: Villanea FA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6309227 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature