Late European Neanderthals showed healthy genetic diversity

A new genetic study reveals that some of the last Neanderthals in northwestern Europe were part of a large, interconnected population with healthy levels of genetic diversity, challenging the long-held assumption that inbreeding and genetic decline were the primary drivers of their extinction. The research, published in the journal Nature on June 24, analyzed DNA from the remains of 27 individuals from 10 archaeological sites in Belgium and France, dating from approximately 45,000 to 40,000 years ago.

The findings indicate that these late Neanderthals, particularly those from the Meuse River basin, showed little evidence of recent inbreeding. Unlike previously studied groups from Siberia, which lived in small, isolated communities, the northwestern European population appears to have been a cohesive network with gene flow between distinct groups. The study's authors concluded this population was genetically healthy and robust in the millennia before Neanderthals vanished.

This genetic portrait complicates the narrative of a uniform decline. The high-quality genome sequenced from an individual in Belgium's Goyet Cave did not show lower genetic diversity or a greater load of...