Confirmed: The Hominins Found at Atapuerca are the Earliest Genetic Evidence of Neanderthals to Date

After decades of study and many assumptions, the analysis of nuclear DNA has finally confirmed the evolutionary lineage of the inhabitants of the Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain.

For some time, scientists and researchers of the site in Atapuerca have known that the 28 individuals who lived near the Sima de los Huesos “Pit of Bones” around 430,000 years ago were similar to modern humans in stature, though wider and more robust. In addition, their work has shown that the beings preferred to use their right hands, size differences between females and males were similar to today, and that they were probably able to talk like modern humans. Despite having all that information, clarification was still needed on one important issue: to which hominid species did they belong?

Until now, as Agencia SINC indicates, these origins were a mystery. On the one hand, the characteristics of the recovered skeletal remains were better related to Neanderthals. On the other, the analysis of mitochondrial DNA (DNA transmitted by the maternal line) of a femur sequenced in December 2013, associated the hominins with the extinct Denisovans – distant relatives of Neanderthals who lived in Siberia. That DNA analysis did not correspond with European Neanderthals.