When the Homo sapiens left Africa, a rapid evolution in your red blood cells may have helped you survive-but it may also have led to the disappearance of the Neanderthal.
Homo sapiens may have undergone adaptive genetic changes in their blood types shortly after leaving Africa, according to an investigation published on Thursday in .
The study mapped the genetic diversity of blood groups in 22 Homo Sapiens and 14 Neanderthals of Eurasia, who lived between 120,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Despite advances in paleogenomics, red blood cell blood group systems in ancient human populations continue to be little understood, the authors under their article underlined.
Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens of the Superior Paleolithic
To advance in this field, the University of Aix-Marselha (France) team, led by Stéphane Mazières, used genetic data from old human remains to assess whether the diversity of the Neanderthal blood group was shared with upper paleolithic homo sapiens populations between 40,000 and 10,000 years.
While the Neanderthals had ancestral alleles – each of two or more versions of a gene – similar to those of the current population of sub -Saharan Africa, the first homo sapiens in Eurasia developed new HR alleles, which are currently crucial blood types in transfusions and pregnancy monitoring .
These alleles are not present in Neanderthalssuggesting that they may have differentiated into homo sapiens after they left Africa, but before they spread themselves through Eurasia.
“Homo sapiens won Eurasia with alleles of the currently exclusive blood group of non-African populations,” said the authors, explaining that this suggests that they may have differentiated shortly after leaving Africa between 70,000 and 45,000 years.
The study also identifies three missing alleles in current humans, which may belong to a Homo Sapiens lineage whose ancestry has not contributed to today’s euro-Asian populations.
The authors point out that the population of Homo Sapiens who arrived at the Persian Plateau remained for at least 15,000 years, long enough to develop HR alleles. These alleles may have provided a evolutionary advantage to Homo sapiens populations which were exposed to different selection pressures than the populations that remained in Africa.
The contribution of this study is double, highlighted scientists in the article. On the one hand, “She sheds light on Homo sapiens expansion patterns and, on the other hand, recalls the anthropological effectiveness of genetic polymorphisms that are currently being studied for transfusion security and pregnancy monitoring.”
