Oana Teodora Moldovan, a researcher affiliated with the Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, contributed to the study of the genomes of the oldest modern humans discovered in Europe, who lived around 45,000 years ago in the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria. These individuals had Neanderthal ancestors 5–7 generations back, which suggests that interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals was by no means an exception for the first modern humans who arrived in Europe from Africa.
The results were published in Nature, one of the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world.
Genetic sequencing of human remains dating back 45,000 years has revealed a previously unknown migration into Europe and showed intermixing with Neanderthals in that period was more common than previously thought.
The research is based on the analysis of several ancient human remains—including a whole tooth and bone fragments—found in the Bacho Kiro cave. Genetic sequencing found the remains came from individuals who were more closely linked to present-day populations in East Asia and the Americas than populations in Europe. This indicates that they belonged to a modern human migration into Europe that was not previously known from the genetic record. It also provides evidence that there was at least some continuity between the earliest modern humans in Europe and later people in Eurasia.
The findings shifted our previous understanding of early human migrations into Europe, showing how even the earliest history of modern Europeans in Europe may have been tumultuous and involved population replacements. One possibility raised by the findings is a dispersal of human groups that then get replaced (by other groups) later on in West Eurasia, but continue living and contribute ancestry to the people in East Eurasia.
The remains were hailed as evidence that humans lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe significantly earlier than once thought. Genetic analysis also revealed that modern humans in Europe at that time mixed more with Neanderthals than was previously assumed.
Previous evidence for early human-Neanderthal mixing in Europe came from a single individual called the Oase 1, dating back 40,000 years and found in Romania.
Original article: Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry, Nature 592, pp. 253–257 (2021)
