ArticleNature communications2019
Disease transmission and introgression can explain the long-lasting contact zone of modern humans and Neanderthals.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was strongly sex biased.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- A simple analytical model for Neanderthal disappearance due to genetic dilution by recurrent small-scale immigrations of modern humans.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Widespread Adaptive Introgression of Major Histocompatibility Complex Genes across Vertebrate Hybrid Zones.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
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- Archaeology meets environmental genomics: implementing sedaDNA in the study of the human past.Archaeological and anthropological sciences · 2024Article
- Population genomics of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli uncovers high connectivity between urban and rural communities in Ecuador.Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Infectious diseases may have arrested the southward advance of microblades in Upper Palaeolithic East Asia.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The impact of HLA polymorphism on herpesvirus infection and disease.Immunogenetics · 2023Review
- The role of genetic selection and climatic factors in the dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
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- Immunoglobulin genes, reproductive isolation and vertebrate speciation.Immunology and cell biology · 2022Article
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- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Neanderthals and modern humans both occupied the Levant for tens of thousands of years prior to the spread of modern humans into the rest of Eurasia and their replacement of the Neanderthals. That the inter-species boundary remained geographically localized for so long is a puzzle, particularly in light of the rapidity of its subsequent movement. Here, we propose that infectious-disease dynamics can explain the localization and persistence of the inter-species boundary. We further propose, and support with dynamical-systems models, that introgression-based transmission of alleles related to the immune system would have gradually diminished this barrier to pervasive inter-species interaction, leading to the eventual release of the inter-species boundary from its geographic localization. Asymmetries between the species in the characteristics of their associated 'pathogen packages' could have generated feedback that allowed modern humans to overcome disease burden earlier than Neanderthals, giving them an advantage in their subsequent spread into Eurasia.
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