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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the could've-just-asked dept.

A new collaborative study, led by the Natural History Museum and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has extracted ancient DNA from the Neanderthal fossils of Gibraltar for the first time. The new study has confirmed the sex of the skulls and in the case of the fossil discovered in Forbes' Quarry, has related it to Neanderthals beyond Gibraltar.

The Neanderthal fossils of Gibraltar are among the most prominent finds in palaeontology. The fossils are some of the most historic of their kind, having been discovered at Forbes' Quarry in 1848 and Devil's Tower in 1926. The authors of the new study used a DNA preparation method that reduces modern contamination prior to sequencing, to isolate the Neanderthal DNA component.

The Natural History Museum's Professor Chris Stringer said: "The analyses confirmed that the Devil's Tower child was male, and the Forbes' Quarry adult was female and genetically more similar to earlier (60,000-120,000 year-old) Neanderthals in Europe and western Asia than to younger Neanderthal remains from Spain. Although Gibraltar is often considered as one of the last refuges for the Neanderthals before their extinction, it seems that Forbes' Quarry is not a late Neanderthal."

[...] The paper was published in PNAS on 15 July.


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  • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:59PM

    by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Thursday July 18 2019, @12:59PM (#868472)

    The end result...
    Life becomes a bad TV series....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhFIijFD9kg [youtube.com]

    --
    Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 18 2019, @02:03PM

    Although Gibraltar is often considered as one of the last refuges for the Neanderthals before their extinction, it seems that Forbes' Quarry is not a late Neanderthal.

    Oh, I guarantee she's a late Neanderthal. Pretty much anything fossilized is going to be a good candidate for applying "the late" to, except your wrist because those watches keep pretty good time.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:35PM (#868533)

    they finally got a sample from Aristarchus?

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:42PM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 18 2019, @03:42PM (#868536)

    You can't get blood from a stone, but you can get DNA from a Rock.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @04:57PM (#868582)

    what happend to the 57 1/2 genders in the archeological record?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:20PM (#868659)

      They went extinct.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:16PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:16PM (#868656)

    Neanderthal Park, where you can fuck all the neanderhals you want!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 18 2019, @08:21PM (#868661)

      That's hot. I would pay for that.

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