Some researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found fossil remains of 13 Neandertal individuals, 11 in Chagyrskaya Cave and 2 in Okladnikov Cave. These two caves are located in the Altai Mountains, the farthest eastern extreme of the known Neanderthal range. This research is one of the largest genetic studies of a Neanderthal population. They collaborated closely with colleagues of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, the Department of Anthropology of the University of Toronto (Canada), the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Vienna (Austria) and other institutions.
For the first time, to our knowledge, we document familiar relationships between Neanderthals, with a social organization, which means the size, sex composition and spatiotemporal cohesion of a communit. In the tribe there were seven males and six females, of which five children and adolescents, including a father-and-daughter pair. There also was a boy between 8 and 12 years old, based on dental evidence, along with an adult female relative, which the genetic findings suggested was an aunt, cousin or grandmother.
Researchers used Y chromosomes and mtDNA for studying kinship relations. Shared mtDNA variants between Chagyrskaya and Okladnikov individuals suggest that these small Neanderthal communities were predominantly linked by female migration. In any case it is not known if the characteristics of these two communities are due to their isolated geographical location or if they are in general for Neanderthals.
"I think our insights make Neanderthals more relatable, and in some sense more human. They were people that lived and died in small family groups, likely in a harsh environment. Yet they managed to persevere for hundreds of thousands of years" said population geneticist Benjamin Peter, a co-author of the research published in the journal Nature.
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