Brief communication: paleoanthropology and the population genetics of ancient genes

Abstract

The Mezmaiskaya cave mtDNA is similar in many ways to the Feldhofer cave Neandertal sequence and the more recently obtained Vindija cave sequence. If we accept the contention that the Mezmaiskaya cave specimen is a Neandertal infant, its mtDNA provides no new information about the fate of the European Neandertals. However, there is reason to believe that the Mezmaiskaya cave infant is not a Neandertal, and this places its importance in another light, because it delimits the possible hypotheses of Neandertal and recent human genetic relationships. One possibility is a that the pattern found in ancient mtDNA results from the replacement of an isolated gene pool (Neandertals) by one of its contemporaries (modern humans). A second possibility is natural selection expressed as the substitution of an advantageous mtDNA variant within a single large species, including both Neandertals and modern humans. The geologic, archaeological, and dating evidence shows the Mezmaiskaya cave infant to be a burial from a level even more recent than the Upper Paleolithic preserved at the site, and its anatomy does not contradict the assessment that the Mezmaiskaya cave infant is not a Neandertal. Therefore, the second pattern can be favored over the first.