A facial analysis technique from forensic anthropology points to the Near East as an important region where modern humans and Neanderthals interbred.
to play host to a long-lasting and well-defined boundary between humans and Neanderthals, but whether it was a region of genetic exchange was not known. An existing theory to explain the oddness of the DNA evidence available had been that the Near East had been a region of genetic exchange, with those humans carrying Neanderthal DNA into Asia as they expanded into it, which would account for the higher rates there than in Europe.
Ross says that analyzing facial morphology allows for a level of granular insight that’s very difficult to replicate with DNA: “It added a different perspective.” The role of DNA analysis in paleoanthropology was transformative, she says. “DNA changed the discipline. We found Neanderthals definitely interbred with Denisovans” she says, as an example. “But through DNA you don’t get to really examine the actual patterns: Is it temporally related? Is it related to the climatic zones? Can you pinpoint a region?” Where facial analysis has been used in paleoanthropology, she adds, it has largely been qualitative, not quantitate.
What they found was that their 100,000-year-old samples of modern humans in the Near East were exactly as similar to other human samples as they were to Neanderthals. “And that’s what you would expect if there was hybridization,” he adds. Churchill cautions that the findings are not water tight, due to the small sample sizes in this study. “I wouldn’t take this to the bank and say we’ve pinned it down. But it’s interesting that it’s sort of consistent with the DNA that points to the Near East as a major locus,” he says.“People have used facial morphology, as well as other details of the cranium and teeth, to say this [fossil] looks Neanderthal-like, though it’s clearly a modern human," Churchill says.
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