International scientists with the participation of the University of Wrocław researchers have reported on the oldest mitochondrial genome of a Neanderthal from Central and Eastern Europe. The genome isolated from the tooth discovered in the Stajnia cave is genetically closer to the Caucasus population than to the genome of Neanderthals from the same period in Western Europe.

The results of research by scientists from the German Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Wrocław and the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Italian University of Bologna have been published in the Scientific Reports journal.

Molecular age of about 80,000 years places the tooth from the Stajnia cave in an important period for the history of Neanderthals, when the environment was subject to extreme seasonal changes and some groups of people spread eastwards to Central Asia.

More: https://uni.wroc.pl/najstarszy-potwierony-genetycznej-neandertalczyk-w-srodkowo-wschodnia-europie/