Out of the veil of death rode the one million! Neandertals and their genes.
Two recent papers report extensive nuclear DNA sequence from a 38,000-year-old Neandertal fossil, comparing it to modern humans and estimating when it diverged from, and whether it contributed to, our gene pool. Based on 65,250 and over a million base-pairs of sequence across the genome, respectively, the groups arrived at slightly different interpretations. The data are an exciting and interesting new contribution, but are not surprising, and a sense of history and question helps put them in perspective.
Weiss
Kenneth M
KM
Department of Anthropology, Penn State University, PA 16802, USA. kenweiss@psu.edu
Smith
Fred H
FH
D000818:Animals; D000883:Anthropology; D001483:Base Sequence; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005580:Fossils; D015186:Hominidae / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial