Journal article
Culture, population structure, and low genetic diversity in Pleistocene hominins
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.106(1), pp.33-37
01/06/2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/106458
PMCID: PMC2629215
PMID: 19104042
Abstract
Paleogenomic research has shown that modern humans, Neanderthals, and their most recent common ancestor have displayed less genetic diversity than living great apes. The traditional interpretation that low levels of genetic diversity in modern humans resulted from a relatively recent demographic bottleneck cannot account for similarly low levels of genetic diversity in Middle Pleistocene hominins. A more parsimonious hypothesis proposes that the effective population size of the human lineage has been low for more than 500,000 years, but the mechanism responsible for suppressing genetic diversity in Pleistocene hominin populations without similarly affecting that of their hominoid contemporaries remains unknown. Here we use agent-based simulation to study the effect of culturally mediated migration on neutral genetic diversity in structured populations. We show that, in populations structured by culturally mediated migration, selection can suppress neutral genetic diversity over thousands of generations, even in the absence of bottlenecks or expansions in census population size. In other words, selection could have suppressed the effective population size of Pleistocene hominins for as long as the degree of cultural similarity between regionally differentiated groups played an important role in mediating intraspecific gene flow.
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Details
- Title
- Culture, population structure, and low genetic diversity in Pleistocene hominins
- Creators
- L. S Premo - Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, GermanyJean-Jacques Hublin - Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.106(1), pp.33-37
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Identifiers
- 99900546811901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article