Genetic analysis of remains from Belgium and France indicates that some of the last Neanderthals in north-western Europe lived in diverse, connected groups. The findings suggest inbreeding was not a major factor in their extinction around 40,000 years ago.
Researchers sequenced DNA from 27 Neanderthal remains across nine sites, dating between 52,500 and 40,000 years ago. The specimens came from at least 11 individuals, including one high-quality genome from a woman who lived about 45,000 years ago in Belgium’s Goyet cave.
The group displayed no signs of rising harmful mutations or shrinking diversity, though overall variation remained lower than in contemporary modern humans. These north-western Neanderthals were more genetically diverse than earlier populations studied in Siberia’s Altai region and formed a distinct lineage that split from eastern groups around 54,000 years ago.
Modern humans reached Europe roughly 47,000 years ago, yet the analysed genomes contained no detectable human DNA. The results point to regional differences in Neanderthal population structure near the time of their disappearance.