Odds are you carry DNA from a Neandertal, Denisovan or some other archaic human. Just a few years ago such a statement would have been virtually unthinkable. For decades evidence from genetics seemed to support the theory that anatomically modern humans arose as a new species in a single locale in Africa and subsequently spread out from there, replacing archaic humans throughout the Old World without mating with them. But in recent years geneticists have determined that, contrary to that conventional view, anatomically modern Homo sapiens did in fact interbreed with archaic humans, and that their DNA persists in people today.
The University of Arizona in Tucson examines the latest genetic finding and explores the possibility that DNA from these extinct relatives helped H. sapiens become the wildly successful species it is today.
I have an enduring interest in the rise of H. sapiens and I am fascinated with Neandertals. So naturally I’ve been keen to find out how much, if any, Neandertal DNA I have in my own genome. Several consumer genetic test companies now test for Neandertal genetic markers as part of the broader ancestry analysis, and, after one of them lowered the price of their kit to U$ 99 in December, I decided to take the plunge. As it happens, National Geographic’s Genographic Project had recently updated their own genetic test to look for Neandertal DNA, and they sent me a kit. And so it was on a chilly Saturday in late January that I found myself spitting into a test tube for a test company and swabbing my cheek for the Genographic Project.
Of course the two tests look at far more than one’s Neandertal ancestry. The company provides a wealth of health information, testing for variation in DNA that might affect disease risk and drug performance as well as mutations that could cause disease in one’s children. Genographic’s test does not look for health information. Both tests trace one’s maternal lineage (and paternal lineage, for males) to beyond 10,000 years ago and reveal what percentage of one’s recent ancestry comes from various regions around the world.
Finding my inner neandertal. In: Scientific
American, April, 2013, p. 5-7 (adapted).
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