Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors interbred with a distantly related hominin
Authors:
Alan R. Rogers, Nathan S. Harris, and Alan A. Achenbach
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that modern Eurasians interbred with their Neanderthal
and Denisovan predecessors. We show here that hundreds of thousands of years earlier,
the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with their own Eurasian predecessors—members
of a “superarchaic” population that separated from other humans about 2 million years
ago. The superarchaic population was large, with an effective size between 20 and
50 thousand individuals. We confirm previous findings that (i) Denisovans also interbred
with superarchaics, (ii) Neanderthals and Denisovans separated early in the middle
Pleistocene, (iii) their ancestors endured a bottleneck of population size, and (iv)
the Neanderthal population was large at first but then declined in size. We provide
qualified support for the view that (v) Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors
of modern humans.
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