Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
A wave of migrating farmers from the ancient Middle East may be the reason why modern Europeans don't carry as much Neanderthal DNA as today's East Asians do, a new study finds.
Now, a new study posits a solution to this conundrum: While a wave of human migration out of Africa before at least 40,000 years ago brought Homo sapiens — who were hunter-gatherers — into contact with their Homo neanderthalensis cousins and led to interbreeding, a later wave of H. sapiens migrating about 10,000 years ago diluted Neanderthal genes in Europe only.
"This scenario says that's not necessary," Hawks said."We can explain this difference based on just one expansion." Particularly stark was the difference between European hunter-gatherers and the Neolithic farmers who came to settle Europe about 10,000 years ago. The hunter-gatherers had a higher proportion of Neanderthal genes than the Neolithic farmers, suggesting that this wave of newcomers diluted Neanderthal ancestry in Europe. East Asia didn't see a similar influx — their farmers were homegrown, Hawks said — so East Asian genetics weren't diluted in the same way.
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