Overview
- An international team sequenced mitochondrial DNA from eight Neanderthal teeth at Stajnia Cave in southern Poland, producing the first multi-individual genetic snapshot from north of the Carpathians.
- The study, published this week in Current Biology, identifies at least seven individuals who lived in the same place during a warm phase roughly 120,000 to 92,500 years ago.
- Three teeth, two from juveniles and one from an adult, carry identical maternal DNA, pointing to close family ties within the group.
- The Stajnia maternal lineage sits on a branch also found in Neanderthals from Iberia, south-eastern France, and the northern Caucasus, suggesting a once-widespread line later replaced in more recent Neanderthals.
- A comparison to the Mandrin Cave individual known as Thorin, dated to about 50,000 years, shows near-matching mtDNA and underscores that radiocarbon ages near the method’s upper limit lose precision and must be cross-checked with archaeology and genetics.