The Neanderthals were once spread across Europe and as far east as the Altai Mountains.
More than 160 years after the first Neanderthal fossils were unearthed in Europe, little is known about the size of the Neanderthal community.
A new study shows a snapshot of a Neanderthal community.
A group of Neanderthals lived in the Altai foothills around 54,000 years ago. A father and his daughter were close to many of them.
25 years ago, the first genetic clues to Neanderthals were obtained from a fragment of Mitochondrial DNA.
The existence of many genetically distinct groups between 420,000 and 40,000 years ago has been revealed by a series of studies.
The teeth and bones of multiple Neanderthals who lived at the same time have been analyzed. There were archaeological excavations of Okladnikov Cave and Chagyrskaya Cave in the 1980's.
Neanderthals used these caves to hunt. More than 80 Neanderthal fossils were found in Chagyrskaya Cave, which is one of the largest collections of such fossils in the world.
Stone tools found at Neanderthal sites in central and eastern Europe are similar to the ones found at the two sites.
To paint a detailed picture of the genetic makeup and relatedness of these Neanderthals, we analyzed mitochondrial DNA (which is passed down the female line), Y-chromosomes (passed from father to son), and genome-wide data (inherited from both parents).
There were teeth and bones from 13 people. The Neanderthals had seven males and six females. Adults and children were the majority of the group.
The remains of a Neanderthal father and his teenage daughter were among those found.
The Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov Neanderthals are more related to European Neanderthals than Denisova Cave was to Neanderthals.
A previous study of a Chagyrskaya Neanderthal and the presence of distinctive stone tools at the Okladnikov Caves are similar to those found at Neanderthal sites in Europe.
The Chagyrskaya Neanderthals have a special kind of genetic variation that lasts for less than three generations.
The evidence shows that the Chagyrskaya Neanderthals must have died at the same time.
The Neanderthal community had very low genetic diversity and a group size of just 10 to 20 people.
This is much smaller than the genetic diversity recorded for any ancient or present-day human community and is similar to the genetic diversity of species at risk of extinction.
The Chagyrskaya Neanderthals were not a group of people who stayed out of the public eye. The Y-chromosome diversity of the Neanderthals was lower than that of theMitochondrial DNA.
Denisova Cave was occupied by the Denisovans from at least 100,000 years ago.
Neanderthals interbred with Denisovans at one point. A daughter from a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father was produced 100,000 years ago.
We found no evidence that Denisovan genes flowed into Neanderthals in the 20,000 years leading up to their demise.
Neanderthals have been shown to have many of the same skills and abilities as our ancestors.
There is a new social aspect to this picture. Neanderthals lived on the eastern frontier of their geographic range close to the time when their species died out.
Richard 'Bert' Roberts is the Director of the Centre of excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
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