Study finds Siberian Neanderthals originated from various populations

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 An international team of researchers including archaeologist Thorsten Uthmeier, professor of Prehistory and Protohistory at FAU, have now examined tools found in the Chagyrskaya cave in the Altai mountains in Russia in order to find the answer.

The site has been excavated since 2019 as part of a DFG research project in conjunction with the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of the Sciences in Novosibirsk. In addition to stone tools and bones from hunting remains, two main find layers yielded numerous Neanderthal fossils. After discovering that the stone tools did not resemble any of the tools from groups living in the Altai during the same period, the team searched for comparable finds in a larger radius.

The researchers were able to reconstruct the route of migration of the Siberian Neanderthals using DNA analyses of Neanderthal bones and sediments from the Chagyrskaya cave. The route led the groups during the course of several generations via Croatia and the North Caucasus to the Altai.

 The tool analysis supports a 2019 DNA study suggesting that a Neanderthal from Chagyrskaya Cave was more closely related to Neanderthals from Europe than to Neanderthals at Denisova Cave, located 100 kilometres east of Chagyrskaya. The Neanderthal remains at Denisova Cave are more than 100,000 years old, and probably represent an earlier wave of migration.

The interdisciplinary examinations of the Neanderthals found in the Chagyrskaya cave, in which Bavarian find sites investigated by FAU play an important role, clearly show that the wave of migration of groups of this species of human 60,000 years ago originated in Central and Eastern Europe.

Sources: 1, 2, 3