Neanderthal DNA: How different were they from humans?

The Homo neanderthalensis are often regarded as the long-lost cousins of the Homo sapiens sapiens. However, it is an ongoing debate whether the Neanderthals were a sub-species of humans, or a separate species by themselves. The analysis of Neanderthal DNA has provided the key to the many questions surrounding this member of the Homo genus.

The nuclear DNA of Neanderthals has been studied extensively in the Neanderthal genome project, which gave the conclusion that modern non-African human populations have traces of Neanderthal DNA. To explain this, Green et al. argues that interbreeding happened between Neanderthals and humans shortly after the ancestors of modern non-Africans migrated out of Africa. Hence modern African populations do not show any Neanderthal DNA traces. However, fossil records did not place humans and Neanderthals in the same geographic region at this period.

In 2015 Neanderthal remains dating to about 55 thousand years ago were discovered in Manot Cave, Israel. This bridged the gap between the fossil record and DNA record and provided evidence for both species inhabiting the region at the same period, hence inbreeding was possible (Hershkovitz 2015).

Figure 1: Geographic Location of Manot Cave, Israel

Other sections of Neanderthal DNA have also been researched on. Mitochondria, a type of cell organelle, contains small DNA loops (mtDna), which is only passed along by females (Renfrew 2018). The analysis of mtDNA from Neanderthals fossils shows that the Neanderthals have not contributed to the modern human mtDNA pool. Yet this only disapproves the flow of DNA from Neanderthals to humans through maternal lines (Wang 2013). The Y chromosome of Neanderthals has also been studied, primarily by Mendez et al. in 2016. Unlike mtDNA, Y chromosomes are passed along the paternal line. The data suggests that the Neanderthal Y chromosome is not present in modern human samples at all. Mendez concluded that mutations made the Neanderthals genetically incompatible to humans and consequently resulted in the loss of the Neanderthal Y chromosome in present-day humans.

However, for all that DNA analysis tells us, it does not tell us much about the material culture of the Neanderthals. This is where archaeology comes in. The sites and artifacts can tell us how the Neanderthals lived, what they ate, what technology they used. They used stone and wooden tools but unlike early humans, their living areas did not have specific activity sites. Their diets were highly reliant on meat, as has been revealed by isotopic analysis of their remains. It has also been argued that the rarity of “symbolic” objects such as art or ornaments in Neanderthal sites indicates “a lack of human cognitive ability and language” (Harvati 2010).

Figure 2: 337,000 – 300,000 years old wooden spear from Schöningen

To summarize, present-day humans outside of Africa show traces of Neanderthal DNA, but there are no Neanderthal mtDNA or Neanderthal Y chromosomes in modern human populations. The current consensus among anthropologists is that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens are indeed separate species, although that might change with further research and with the discovery of more Neanderthal samples.


Further information on early hominids and the great human migration.


Images: Figure 1 and Figure 2


References cited:

Green, Richard E., et al.

2010  A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome. Science 328: 710-722

Link to “A Draft Sequence of Neandertal Genome

Harvati, Katerina

2010  Neanderthals. Evo Edu Outreach 3: 367–376

Link to “Neanderthals”

Hershkovitz, Israel, et al.

2015  Levantine cranium from Manot Cave (Israel) foreshadows the first European modern humans. Nature 520: 216–219

Link to “Levantine cranium from Manot Cave (Israel) foreshadows the first European modern humans”

Mendez, Fernando l., G. David Poznik, Sergi Castellano, and Carlos D. Bustamante

2016  The Divergence of Neandertal and Modern Human Y Chromosomes. Am J Hum Genet 98(4): 728-734

Link to “The Divergence of Neandertal and Modern Human Y Chromosome

Renfrew, Colin, and Paul Bahn

2018  Archaeology Essentials Theories/ Methods/ Practice. Thames &Hudson, London.

Wang, Chuan-Chao, Sara E. Farina, and Hui Li

2012  Neanderthal DNA and modern human origins. Quaternary International 295: 126-129

Link to “Neanderthal DNA and modern human origins”

2 thoughts on “Neanderthal DNA: How different were they from humans?

  1. Your blog combines both biological anthropology and archaeology to reveal insights into early human populations. American Anthropology is often separated into four fields: linguistical anthropology, cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, and archaeology. Why does having so many subfields matter? What impact does it have on anthropology as a field?

    • Anthropology is the study of humans, human behaviors and societies, both in the past and the present. Hence the field encompasses a variety of concentrations which focus on different aspects of human lives. Linguistic anthropology seeks to understand the processes of human communication; cultural anthropology is the study of cultural variation among humans; biological (or physical) anthropology is concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of humans; and archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Each field has further subfields too. Having so many subfields makes anthropology such that two different anthropologists may have completely different and unrelated courses of research. However, they are still connected by their interest in deciphering what it means to be human.

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