Anatomically modern humans interbred with more archaic hominin forms even before they migrated out of Africa, a UA-led team of researchers has found.

It is now widely accepted that anatomically modern humans of the species Homo sapiens originated in Africa and eventually spread throughout the world. Ancient DNA recovered from fossil Neanderthal bones suggests they interbred with more archaic hominin forms once they had left their evolutionary cradle for the cooler climates of Eurasia, but whether they exchanged genetic material with other, now extinct archaic hominin varieties in Africa remained unclear.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, a team led by Michael Hammer, an associate professor and research scientist with the UA’s Arizona Research Labs, provides evidence that anatomically modern humans were not so unique that they remained separate.

‘We found evidence for hybridization between modern humans and archaic forms in Africa. It looks like our lineage has always exchanged genes with their more morphologically diverged neighbors,’ said Hammer, who also holds appointments in the UA’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, the school of anthropology, the BIO5 Institute and the Arizona Cancer Center.

The team reports that contemporary African populations contain a small proportion […]