Some surprising relationships were found in the remains of 13 Neanderthals, who lived in Asia about 50,000 years ago.
Neanderthals were a group of hominins that lived alongside and interbred with modern humans. Neanderthals are thought to have been bred out of existence and most people today have Neanderthal genes in their genomes.
A group of Neanderthals lived in the Altai mountains. The group was made up of seven men and six women; based on the analysis, eight of them were adults and five were children or adolescents.
The Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves are about 60 miles away from the famous Denisova Cave. This week, an analysis of the bones and teeth is published in Nature.
They were living at the same time. The leader of the study said that they likely came from the same social community. Genetics can be used to study the social organization of a community.
Some people from Chagyrskaya Cave were related to one another. There was a father and daughter, as well as a pair of second degree relatives, based on the age and sex of the other individual when she died.
Neanderthals and Denisovans lived in the same cave at the same time. The Denisovans did not breed with the ancestors of the Chagyrskaya Neanderthals in the 20,000 years before they died.
The Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves were found to have some ancestral connection between them.
The team compared the Neanderthals' Y chromosomes with the diversity from the matrilineal genes. The team theorizes that Neanderthals like those in Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov caves were mostly linked by female migration.
The Y chromosomes, which are inherited from father to son, were looked at to see how communities were related. The Y chromosomes are similar in the Chagyrskaya Neanderthals and this suggests that women are mobile.
The close connections between people at the same place are fascinating. It's not surprising that Neanderthal kin would stick together, but it is special to see that they are very close to each other.
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