Israeli and French researchers have discovered in Israel the earliest scientific evidence of interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday.
The skeleton of a five-year-old child who lived 140,000 years ago, that was found in a prehistoric cave on Mount Carmel, features a combination of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens traits, according to the university.
Neanderthals vs Homo sapiens
While closely related, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were distinct human species with different physical characteristics and behavioral patterns. Neanderthals primarily inhabited Europe and Asia and were stockier with shorter limbs, while Homo sapiens, which originated in Africa, were taller and leaner. While they coexisted and interbred for a period, Neanderthals eventually became extinct about 40,000 years ago.
The 140,000-year-old fossil, which was uncovered nine decades ago in the Skhul Cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in northern Israel, is the earliest ever found with morphological features of both of these human groups, the researchers said.
“Genetic studies over the past decade have shown that these two groups exchanged genes,” said TAU’s professor Israel Hershkovitz. “The fossil we studied is the earliest known physical evidence of mating between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.”
The child’s skeleton is the result of continuous genetic infiltration from the local—and older—Neanderthal population into the Homo sapiens population, according to the researchers.
Earlier studies of mergers of the two species date back 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, while this one goes back 140,000 years, said Hershkovitz.
“In our study, we show that the child’s skull, which in its overall shape resembles that of Homo sapiens—especially in the curvature of the skull vault—has an intracranial blood supply system, a lower jaw and an inner ear structure typical of Neanderthals.”
For years, the Neanderthals were thought to be a group that evolved in Europe, migrating to the Land of Israel only about 70,000 years ago, following the advance of European glaciers. But a recent landmark study showed that early Neanderthals actually lived in the Land of Israel as early as 400,000 years ago.
Anthropologists have previously attributed the fossils discovered in the Skhul Cave, along with fossils from the Qafzeh Cave near Nazareth, to an early group of Homo sapiens, said Hershkovitz.
Even today, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals disappeared, part of our genome—2% to 6%—is of Neanderthal origin, he added.
The study, carried out with the French National Centre for Scientific Research, was published in the journal l’Anthropologie.
