A new study sheds light on how Neanderthals built their tribes.
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Neanderthals are distant cousins of humans who lived between 430,000 and 40,000 years ago. We usually think of them as uncivilized creatures who lived in caves and carried clubs. But Laurits Skov, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, says we need to shake that image out of our minds.
Their connection to humans is further strengthened by the latest findings by Skov and his colleagues, published this week in the journal Nature. The team examined genetic material taken from Neanderthal bones and teeth from two caves in central Russia. The cave dwellers are believed to have lived about 55,000 years ago. They extracted the DNA by drilling tiny holes into the ancient finds. It was a delicate operation.
It's the first time Neanderthal relatives have been discovered side by side. Skov says the DNA of the individuals who lived in the cave also provides some clues about how their society may have been organized. By looking at mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from females, and Y chromosomes, which come from males, Skov and his colleagues were able to determine that women were more likely to have come from different groups. In other words, Neanderthal society may have been organized in a way where women moved to be with men's families.
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Lara Cassidy from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, says the new find is important because it's the first time that Neanderthals living at the same time interacted. "This is really exciting because what we have is a community and we can start to understand a little bit about how these communities functioned," she says.
Cassidy, who did not participate in this study, warns that the findings are limited as the number of Neanderthals who participated in the sample was small. There is no way to know, for example, whether the women moved among all Neanderthal groups or if this was something unique to this species. We also do not know whether the individuals inside the cave were found there by chance, or if they tended to live like that.
The genetic data isn't enough to confirm whether everyone in the cave is distantly related or just friends. Skov says he's still working to get a clearer picture.
There is another mystery: How did the father, the daughter, and his relative die?
Skov says there are no clear indications, but he suspects that hunger may have played a role.
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These Neanderthals were possibly some of the last of their kind.
However, Neanderthals did not disappear completely. Non-African humans contain an average of about 2% Neanderthal DNA. In other words, at least in some cases, humans and Neanderthals met and built communities together.
