introgression
Introgression is the incorporation of genes from one population into another population. Generally biologists use the term introgression when the populations are separated by substantial evolutionary distance, such as different species or lineages that have been separated by a long time.
A hard ceiling on modern human dispersal
Neandertal DNA in some of the oldest modern human genomes establishes a short timeline of 50,000 years for the out-of-Africa founder event.
Tracing the signature of African-to-Neandertal gene flow
A new study of African genetic variation yields a more accurate picture of the genetic exchanges between ancient Africans and Neandertals 250,000 years ago.
Interaction and mixture: big picture and small
From the level of function of a single gene up to the movements of entire populations, our evolution was built from mixture.
When did human chromosome 2 fuse?
More and more, it looks like this event happened shortly before a million years ago, in the common ancestors of Neandertal, Denisovan, and African ancestral humans.
Climate models, Neandertals, and Denisovans
A new paper on biogeography of Neandertals and Denisovans raises ideas about the interactions of these groups.
Tracing the genetic histories of ghost apes
The footprints of extinct lineages are the closest we have to a fossil record of the African apes.
Ghostbusters of human origins
Humans tend to mix and interact with each other. Geneticists are once again starting to take that seriously, changing their view of our origins.
What color were Neandertals?
Even with whole genomes, scientists can't say very precisely what pattern of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation was in ancient populations like the Neandertals.
Explaining the X chromosome hole in Neandertal ancestry
Natural selection reduced the variation on human X chromosomes in populations with the most Neandertal and Denisovan mixture. It may have been meiotic drive.
Fossil profile: Skhūl 1 and the mixing of populations
A child's skull from Mount Carmel gives an occasion to look at the history of ideas about population mixture.
Zlatý kůň and the Neandertal heritage of first Europeans
A skull from Czechia represents an individual from one of the earliest European modern human populations to encounter Neandertals.
Ancient genetic introgression between cave hyenas and spotted hyenas
Describing the results of genomic work by Michael Westbury and collaborators, including ancient hyena genomes from Eurasia and North America.
Research highlight: Accurate depiction of uncertainty in ancient DNA research: The case of Neandertal ancestry in Africa
An article in the Journal of Social Archaeology looking at how researchers shaped public perceptions of Neandertal DNA heritage in living people.
Goat immunity modified by introgression during and after domestication
A new paper in Science Advances describes some of the evidence for selection on introgressed genes in goats.
Neandertals got 6% of their genomes from Africa
An analysis by Melissa Hubisz and coworkers finds that mtDNA is not all that Neandertals received from our African ancestors
How much Neandertal DNA do today's African peoples have?
New research shows that today's populations in Africa have around one third the Neandertal ancestry as people in Eurasia.
An enormous sample sheds light on the Denisovan ancestry of people in Iceland
Laurent Skov and coworkers have measured the very small amount of DNA shared within the Iceland population from Denisovan ancestry and they discuss several scenarios for how it may have gotten there.
Part of a Denisovan mtDNA resides in the nuclear genomes of many living people
A paper last week by Robert Bücking and coworkers trawled through the recently-sequenced Indonesian Genome Diversity Project dataset looking for snippets of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that have been inserted into the nuclear genome. These snippets, called “NUMTs”, arise every so often as a result of DNA transfer from the mitochondrion
Denisovan traits bring up the old problem of understanding morphological continuity
A paper by Shara Bailey and coworkers suggests that three-rooted lower molars are diagnostic of population mixture from Denisovans.
How much sex did it take for Neandertal DNA to enter modern populations?
Addressing a widespread misconception about what geneticists are really measuring when they look at population mixture.
The Manot 1 skull and how we now look at Neandertal ancestry in early modern humans
The discovery of a 54,000-year-old skull in Israel sheds light on the dispersal of modern humans and their contacts with Neandertals.
My reactions on the publication of the first draft Neandertal genome
Publication of the first draft of a Neandertal genome reveals that these ancient humans are among the ancestors of people living today.