Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Random drift with a determined outcome: a parsimonious null model of Neanderthal replacement by modern humans via neutral species drift

Oren Kolodny, Marcus W. Feldman
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/116632
Oren Kolodny
Department of Biology, Stanford Univesity
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Marcus W. Feldman
Department of Biology, Stanford Univesity
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The processes that led to the demise of the Neanderthals and their replacement by modern humans have been the object of speculation, research, and heated debate. Most hypotheses fall into one of two categories: one highlights the role of climate change, epidemics, or other environmental pressures in the Neanderthals’ demise, and the other attributes it to direct or indirect competition with modern humans, who seem to have occupied the same ecological niche. The latter are based on the assumption that modern humans benefited from some selective advantage over Neanderthals that led to the latter’s extinction. We show that a scenario that includes migration and selectively neutral species drift can explain the Neanderthals’ replacement and is in line with the archaeological evidence. Our model offers a parsimonious alternative to those that invoke external factors or selective advantage, and can represent a null hypothesis in assessing such alternatives. We show that for a wide range of parameters this hypothesis cannot be rejected. Moreover, we suggest that although selection and environmental factors may or may not have played a role in the interspecies dynamics of the Neanderthals and modern humans, the eventual outcome of these dynamics, the replacement of the Neanderthals, was the result of the hominid migration dynamics at the end of the middle Paleolithic, namely repeated migration of modern humans from Africa into the Levant and Europe.

Significance statement Multiple factors have been proposed as possible drivers of the extinction of the Neanderthals and their replacement by modern humans circa 40,000 years ago: climate change, epidemics, and – most prominently – a selective advantage, such as superior cognitive capacity of modern humans over Neanderthals. We propose an alternative model that includes only migration of modern humans out of Africa into the Levant and Europe. We show that, given that the two species occupied a similar ecological niche, modern humans were destined to replace the Neanderthals even under a neutral scenario in which neither species has a selective advantage.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted March 14, 2017.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Random drift with a determined outcome: a parsimonious null model of Neanderthal replacement by modern humans via neutral species drift
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Random drift with a determined outcome: a parsimonious null model of Neanderthal replacement by modern humans via neutral species drift
Oren Kolodny, Marcus W. Feldman
bioRxiv 116632; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/116632
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Random drift with a determined outcome: a parsimonious null model of Neanderthal replacement by modern humans via neutral species drift
Oren Kolodny, Marcus W. Feldman
bioRxiv 116632; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/116632

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4231)
  • Biochemistry (9124)
  • Bioengineering (6774)
  • Bioinformatics (23984)
  • Biophysics (12115)
  • Cancer Biology (9520)
  • Cell Biology (13772)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7626)
  • Ecology (11683)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15500)
  • Genetics (10637)
  • Genomics (14317)
  • Immunology (9476)
  • Microbiology (22825)
  • Molecular Biology (9087)
  • Neuroscience (48946)
  • Paleontology (355)
  • Pathology (1480)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2567)
  • Physiology (3844)
  • Plant Biology (8325)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1471)
  • Synthetic Biology (2295)
  • Systems Biology (6185)
  • Zoology (1300)