Genetica: ecco la prima prova di incrocio Neandertal – Sapiens in Europa!

Da un osso mascellare di UAM, o homo sapiens, scoperto nel 2002 in Romania, è stato estratto ed analizzato un campione di DNA. I risultati dell’analisi sono stati sorprendenti: dal 4.8% al 11.3% del genoma del ragazzo rumeno paleolitico ha derivazione neandertaliana. Questa è la prima e vera prova di un incrocio neandertal-sapiens in territorio europeo!
“A young man who lived in Romania 37,000 to 42,000 years inherited as much as one-tenth of his DNA from a Neandertal ancestor, according to a new study of ancient DNA. Ever since spelunkers found a robust jawbone in a cave in Romania in 2002, some paleoanthropologists have thought that its huge wisdom teeth and other features resembled those of Neandertals even though the fossil was a modern human. Now, by sequencing informative parts of the Romanian man’s genome, an international team of researchers has found that he had inherited 4.8% to 11.3% of his genome from a Neandertal who lived only 200 years or so previously, according to a talk this month at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. The finding confirms that Neandertals interbred with modern humans more than once, and it is the first evidence that the two types of humans had a liaison in Europe.”
Articolo completo: http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2015/05/ancient-dna-pinpoints-paleolithic-liaison-europe