Biology subjects

Rogers, A. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Rogers, A. R..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2019

Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors interbred with a distantly-related hominin

Previous research has shown that modern Eurasians interbred with their Neanderthal and Denisovan predecessors. We show here that hundreds of thousands of years earlier, the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with their own Eurasian predecessors--members of a \"superarchaic\" population that separated from other humans about 2 mya. The superarchaic population was large, with an effective size between 20 and 50 thousand individuals. We confirm previous findings that: (1) Denisovans also interbred with superarchaics, (2) Neanderthals and Denisovans separated early in the middle Pleistocene, (3) their ancestors endured a bottleneck of population size, and (4) the Neanderthal population was large at first but then declined in size. We provide qualified support for the view that (5) Neanderthals interbred with the ancestors of modern humans.\n\nOne-sentence summaryWe document the earliest known interbreeding between ancient human populations and an expansion out of Africa early in the middle Pleistocene.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Legofit: Estimating Population History from Genetic Data

BackgroundOur current understanding of archaic admixture in humans relies on statistical methods with large biases, whose magnitudes depend on the sizes and separation times of ancestral populations. To avoid these biases, it is necessary to estimate these parameters simultaneously with those describing admixture. Genetic estimates of population histories also confront problems of statistical identifiability: different models or different combinations of parameter values may fit the data equally well. To deal with this problem, we need methods of model selection and model averaging, which are lacking from most existing software.\n\nResultsThe Legofit software package allows simultaneous estimation of parameters describing admixture and other aspects of population history. It includes facilities for data manipulation, estimation, model selection, and model averaging. It outperforms several statistical methods that have been widely used to study archaic admixture in humans.

evolutionary biology↗