UCLA:

Neanderthals thrived across Europe and the Middle East for hundreds of thousands of years. They occupied vast distances, ranging from Europe through the Altai Mountains in Central Asia. They survived large variations in climate and the arrival of modern humans until around 40,000 years ago, when they died out. The exact factors that resulted in their disappearance remain unknown, with possible explanations including climate change, resource competition and interbreeding with anatomically modern humans.

A new study published in Nature reveals that a Neanderthal population around 45,000 years ago in Belgium and France was doing well, with no signs of inbreeding or pressure from or genetic mixture with modern humans, who lived in the area at that time. The finding suggests that localized Neanderthal groups in this area were large and well-connected enough that individuals could have children with partners who were not closely related. Nonetheless, around 2,000 years later, even this population vanished.

“In other, earlier Neanderthal populations, close relatives were interbreeding, leading to unhealthy levels of genetic diversity similar to what we see today in some endangered species. But this population in Belgium and France does not seem to be dying out, even though we know that they will die out in the end,” said UCLA computational geneticist Benjamin Peter, who is one of the paper’s corresponding authors. [Continue reading…]