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. 2022 Aug 3;11(8):1163.
doi: 10.3390/biology11081163.

Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal-Modern Human Interbreeding

Steven E Churchill  1   2 , Kamryn Keys  3 , Ann H Ross  3
Affiliations

Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal-Modern Human Interbreeding

Steven E Churchill et al. Biology (Basel). .

Abstract

Ancient DNA from, Neandertal and modern human fossils, and comparative morphological analyses of them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between these lineages and the introgression of Neandertal genes into modern human genomes. Despite substantial increases in our knowledge of these events, the timing and geographic location of hybridization events remain unclear. Six measures of facial size and shape, from regional samples of Neandertals and early modern humans, were used in a multivariate exploratory analysis to try to identify regions in which early modern human facial morphology was more similar to that of Neandertals, which might thus represent regions of greater introgression of Neandertal genes. The results of canonical variates analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis suggest important affinities in facial morphology between both Middle and Upper Paleolithic early modern humans of the Near East with Neandertals, highlighting the importance of this region for interbreeding between the two lineages.

Keywords: ancient DNA (aDNA); hominin paleontology; hybridization; introgression; paleoanthropology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of western Eurasia showing areas and estimated dates of possible Neandertal–modern human hybridization (in red) based on fossil samples from indicated sites. Ancient DNA from a Neandertal fossil from Denisova Cave (black dot) has been interpreted as reflecting Neandertal–modern human admixture in the Near East at 100 Ka or earlier. See text for details.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Facial landmark locations for the measurements used.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A plot of CVA canonical axis 2 (CAN 2) on axis 1 (CAN 1) represents 80% of the total variation. Neandertals cluster together (narrow orbits, wide nasal breadth, and large geometric mean); Near Eastern Middle Paleolithic AMH fall in between the Neandertal and the other AMH samples. The Near Eastern/North African AMH sample has intermediate orbit and nasal breadths, and a small geometric mean and is closest to the recent East African sample.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Constellation plot (a) and dendrogram (b) results from hierarchical cluster analysis showing group relationships.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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