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When modern humans emerged from Africa, they explored far more than just new places. They encountered other human species, and in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, they did a heck of a lot more than just say hello.
Archaeologist Saman Guran from Germany's University of Cologne and colleagues used a combination of genetic, archaeological, topographical, and ecological data to narrow down the location. "We believe that the Zagros Mountains acted as a corridor… facilitating northwards dispersal of and southwards dispersal of Guran and team's modeling based on the multiple data sources suggests the Zagros Mountains are where the environmental conditions that best suit modern humans and those best suited to our now extinct cousins overlap. It includes regions of colder habitats like the Neanderthals' Palearctic birthplaces, as well as the warmer richer habitats of the Afrotropical realm that birthed our own species. The timing, between around 120 and 80 thousand years ago, coincides with the second wave of interbreeding that's still written in our genes. With its high biodiversity, the Zagros region also had enough resources to allow both species to exist side by side, and the variety of environments allowed for pockets of safety when climatic conditions got tough. "The border areas of two realms are important in biology since they operate as refugia for species from glacial environments," Guran and teamThis may just be due to the scarcity of available DNA specimens from Neanderthals, or it may be that due to the 500,000 or so years of genetic separation between our two species, successful gene exchange was rare. Guran and team encourage Iranian archeologists to investigate the area they've identified for further clues to such mysteries.
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