Tag Archive for 'Interbreeding'

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Paleoanthropologists Discover Earliest Evidence of Human-Neanderthal Interbreeding

Aug 25, 2025 by News Staff

Paleoanthropologists from Tel Aviv University, the Université de Liège and France’s Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle say they have found a combination...

An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Denisovan DNA May Have Helped Ancient Humans Survive in Americas

Aug 21, 2025 by News Staff

Thousands of years ago, ancient Homo sapiens undertook a treacherous journey, crossing hundreds of km of ice over the Bering Strait to the unknown world...

Interspecific hybridization may trigger species radiation by creating allele combinations and traits. Cultivated potato and its 107 wild relatives from the Petota lineage all share the distinctive trait of underground tubers, but the underlying mechanisms for tuberization and its relationship to extensive species diversification remain unclear. Through analyses of 128 genomes, including 88 haplotype-resolved genomes, Zhang et al. revealed that Petota is of ancient hybrid origin, with all members exhibiting stable mixed genomic ancestry, derived from the Etuberosum and Tomato lineages ca. 8-9 million years ago. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.06.034.

Potato Evolved from Tomato Plants 8-9 Million Years Ago, New Research Suggests

Aug 5, 2025 by News Staff

Interbreeding between tomato plants and potato-like species from South America about 8-9 million years ago gave rise to the modern-day potato (Solanum...

A model of a Neanderthal man in modern clothing. Image credit: H. Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Serious Neurological Condition May Be Linked to Neanderthal Genes

Jul 22, 2025 by News Staff

Interbreeding between anatomically modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals thousands of years ago may be responsible for Chiari Malformation Type 1, a serious...

Denisovans were probably dark-skinned, unlike the pale Neandertals. The picture shows a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Mauro Cutrona.

Study: Neanderthal Gene Flow into Modern Humans Occurred between 50,500 and 43,500 Years Ago

Dec 13, 2024 by News Staff

In a genomic study encompassing more than 300 genomes, researchers determined the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting...

Several Denisovan Populations Introgressed into Modern Humans Multiple Times: Study

Nov 8, 2024 by News Staff

The identification of a new hominin group called Denisovans was one of the most exciting discoveries in human evolution in the last decade. Unlike Neanderthal...

Velazquez-Arcelay et al. found that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be early risers, the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Were Early Risers, New Research Suggests

Dec 14, 2023 by News Staff

When the ancestors of modern Eurasians migrated out of Africa and interbred with Eurasian archaic hominins, namely Neanderthals and Denisovans, DNA of...

Comparisons of Neanderthal genomes to anatomically modern human (AMH) genomes show a history of Neanderthal-to-AMH introgression stemming from interbreeding after the migration of AMHs from Africa to Eurasia. All non-sub-Saharan African AMHs have genomic regions genetically similar to Neanderthals that descend from this introgression. Regions of the genome with Neanderthal similarities have also been identified in sub-Saharan African populations, but their origins have been unclear. To better understand how these regions are distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, the source of their origin, and what their distribution within the genome tells us about early AMH and Neanderthal evolution, Harris et al. analyzed a dataset of high-coverage, whole-genome sequences from 180 individuals from 12 diverse sub-Saharan African populations. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Interbred with Now-Extinct Lineage of Early Modern Humans Over 250,000 Years Ago

Oct 20, 2023 by News Staff

Approximately 6% of the Altai Neanderthal genome was inherited from an ancient lineage of anatomically modern Homo sapiens that migrated from Africa to...

Ruan et al. demonstrate how glacial cycle variability synchronized hominin habitat overlap, Denisovan-Neanderthal interbreeding, and early human gene flow. Image credit: Axel Timmermann.

Climate Shifts Orchestrated Interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans, New Study Says

Aug 15, 2023 by News Staff

Looking at habitat overlap for Neanderthals and Denisovans, Pusan National University researcher Jiaoyang Ruan and colleagues found patterns of interbreeding...