No other archaic human group captures our imaginations like the Neanderthals. While modern genetic techniques have taught us a lot about these mysterious cousins (including that we interbred), the field is still relatively new—the first partial Neanderthal genome sequences weren’t completed until 2010. Three full genome sequences have followed in the years since, all conducted on DNA taken from Neanderthal females. Now, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences details the first high-coverage male Neanderthal genome and the secrets hidden within.
Using DNA extracted from bone fragments recovered from a cave in the Altai region of Russia, researchers from the Max Planck Institute sequenced the genome of a male Neanderthal (Neanderthal D17) who lived there 110,000 years ago. They found that Neanderthals in Altai likely existed in populations with an estimated size of 50 individuals that included some amount of inbreeding. Interestingly, Neanderthal D17 was also related to a female Neanderthal who lived 10,000 years earlier in the same very cave, and genetic analysis revealed that their common ancestors were likely first cousins.
Read more: “How Neanderthals Kept Our Ancestors Warm”
Although there was a notable amount of relatedness among the Altai Neanderthals, genomic comparisons revealed a remarkable degree of genetic divergence between these Neanderthals and more recent cohorts that lived in Europe. In fact, these two populations of Neanderthals, separated by around 40,000 to 50,000 years, were more genetically distinct than the two most divergent human populations living today: the Mbuti of Central Africa and the Papuan Highlanders of New Guinea. Strikingly, our Neanderthal cousins reached a higher degree of genetic divergence in a shorter time, compared to humans.
And that’s not all. According to the researchers, both populations of Neanderthals showed signs of interbreeding with the Denisovans. This archaic human subspecies lived primarily in Asia, but overlapped with Neanderthals in Altai, and even lived in the same cave as Neanderthal D17.
It’s a small world, and the human family tree is more crowded than we thought. 
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