Prehistoric Saga: 1st Contact Trade w Neanderthals

🦣🍖🦴🛖🏔️🌨️ (♀️ only for now) New analysis of DNA from ancient modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe & Asia determined, more precisely than ever, the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear. Interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% to 2% of our genomes today. The genome-based estimate is consistent with archeological evidence that modern humans & Neanderthals lived side-by-side in Eurasia for between 6,000 and 7,000 years. ➡ The 2nd intermingling likely went down in Zagros Mountains. Our story starts HERE after a hard winter & losses.💀 Analysis involved present-day human genomes as well as 58 ancient genomes sequenced from DNA found in modern human bones from around Eurasia, found an average date for Neanderthal-Homo sapiens interbreeding of about 47,000 years ago. Previous estimates for the time of interbreeding ranged from 54,000 to 41,000 years ago. The longer duration of gene flow may help explain, for example, why East Asians have about 20% more Neanderthal genes than Europeans & West Asians. If modern humans moved eastward about 47,000 years ago, as archeological sites suggest, they would already have intermixed Neanderthal genes. Most of the high-frequency Neanderthal genes are related to immune function, skin pigmentation & metabolism, as reported in some previous studies. One immune gene variant inherited from Neanderthals confers protective effects to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, for example. Some of the Neanderthal genes involved in the immune system and skin pigmentation actually increased in frequency in Homo sapiens over time, implying that they may have been advantageous to human survival. “Neanderthals were living outside Africa in harsh, ice age climates and were adapted to the climate and to the pathogens in these environments.")