Gibraltar Neanderthal DNA sequenced: they are not the last survivors.

The DNA of two Neanderthal skulls discovered in Gibraltar has revealed their sex and their affinity with the "Older" Neanderthals such as Scladina Belgium and Russia (see my recent post on the "Old" and "New" Neanderthals) instead of more recent Neanderthals from Spain.

One skull, found in 1848 in Forbes' quarry, lacks the stratigraphic information to be able to date it correctly, and it was assumed to be recent, as Gibraltar is the southernmost part of the Iberian peninsula, and therefore the last bastion where Neanderthals managed to survive when modern Homo sapiens occupied their European range.

But, according to the paper (A genetic analysis of the Gibraltar Neanderthals, Lukas Bokelmann et al. PNAS first published July 15, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1903984116), this skull (also known as Gibraltar 1) is actually closer to the earlier Neanderthals than to the more recent ones:

"is genetically more similar to the ∼120,000-y-old Neanderthals from Scladina Cave in Belgium (Scladina I-4A) and Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany, as well as to a ∼60,000- to 70,000-y-old Neanderthal from Russia (Mezmaiskaya 1), than to a ∼49,000-y-old Neanderthal from El Sidrón (El Sidrón 1253) in northern Spain ".

The second skull belonged to a child, discovered in 1926. The study proved that he was a boy, but his DNA affinity was not mentioned.

DNA Tree Neanderthals. From the paper

As we can see there is "affinity" with the Scladina, Altai and HST branch but we can also see that it is also on the branch that led to all later Neanderthals.

What is really interesting is that these skulls had been handled by many people who left their human DNA on them (back in 1926 or THE 1800s nobody even dreamed of DNA) yet the scientists managed to remove it and focus only on the Neanderthal DNA. Also they found it in bones from a warm setting -heat tends to destroy ancient DNA. So that means that we can harbor hopes that DNA from hot settings in China or Africa can also be sequenced.

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