Svante Paabo talk at NIH
- Apr 14, 2014
- 1 min read
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March 27, 2014 – Dr. Svante Pääbo, director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has helped us understand human evolution by decoding DNA isolated from the dry bones of our ancestors. Using ancient DNA he demonstrated that Neanderthals interbred with humans when modern humans left Africa 50-80k years ago.
A very interesting bit is from 18:30 and forward, in which he discusses the 45,000y BP modern human from Ust-Ishim. Here is a screenshot from this part of the talk (20:32):
According to Dr. Paabo, Ust-Ishim has longer Neandertal chunks than modern humans and this can be used to estimate that the admixture with Neandertals happened 331+/-99 generations before its time of 45,000y BP, or around 50-60,000y BP.
The coalescence of mtDNA haplogroups M and N has been estimated as ~50 and ~59ky BP respectively using modern human variation, so this seems quite compatible with that.
This pretty much proves that there were modern humans in Eurasia before the Upper Paleolithic revolution and disproves Richard Klein’s theory that modern humans together with UP technologies spread Out-of-Africa only after 50,000 years ago.
In another study, Dr. Pääbo sequenced the DNA from a pinky bone found in a Siberian cave. Comparing this DNA to that of Neanderthal and humans his team determined this bone came from previously unknown species of hominid, now called Denisovans. Dr. Pääbo’s lecture covered these stories and other tales written in archaic DNA.
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