DNA reveals when modern humans began ‘mixing’ with Neanderthals
Marek Jantač/National Museum in Prague
(LONDON) — Scientists have pinpointed a time frame in which Neanderthals began “mixing” with modern humans, based on the DNA of early inhabitants of Europe.
Analysis of the oldest-known genomes from early modern humans who lived in Europe indicates that the mixing occurred more recently than previous estimates, according to a paper published in Nature on Thursday.
The mixing likely occurred between 45,000 and 49,000 years ago — meaning the two genetically distinct groups overlapped on the European continent for at least 5,000 years, according to the paper.
Radiocarbon dating of bone fragments from Ranis, Germany, were shown to have 2.9% Neanderthal ancestry, which the authors believe occurred from a single mixing event common among all non-African individuals.
The mixing event likely occurred about 80 generations before those individuals lived, the researchers said.
The group from Ranis also represents the oldest-known family units, Arev Sumer, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and co-author of the paper, said during a news conference on Wednesday. Six individuals from the group were found to have a close kinship, including a mother and daughter.
The findings imply that the ancestors of all currently sequenced non-African early humans lived in a common population during this time, stretching from modern Great Britain to Poland, Johannes Krause, a biochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and co-author of the study, said during the news conference.
“This was rather surprising, because modern humans had just left Africa a few thousand years earlier and had reached this northern part of Europe where climatic conditions were rather cold — much colder than today,” Krause said. “It was the middle of the Ice Age.”
Groups of early humans previously studied in Europe showed very few cases of mixing between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, according to the paper.
The groups were represented by individuals from the Bacho Kiro region in Bulgaria and a woman named Zlaty kun from Czechia — believed to be part of the earliest population to diverge from the “Out-of-Africa” lineage, a small group of Homo sapiens that left the African continent about 80,000 years ago.
Within those two groups, the individuals from Bulgaria only suggest two mixing events with Neanderthals, while Zlaty kun’s lineage only suggests one mixing event, according to the paper.
Zlaty kun was found to have a fifth- or sixth-degree genetic relationship with two Ranis individuals, Sumer said, adding that the Ranis group was part of a small population that left no descendants among present-day people.
Neanderthals are believed to have become extinct about 40,000 years ago, Krause said.
The findings offer researchers a much more precise window of time in which the mixing occurred, as well as more insights into the demographics of early modern humans and the earliest Out-of-Africa migrations, according to the paper.
More research is needed to explore the events following the Out-of-Africa migration and the earliest movements of modern humans across Europe and Asia, Sumer said.
(LONDON) — At least five people have been hospitalized and 62 others detained after a night of violence targeting Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam Thursday evening, authorities said.
The violence occurred after a UEFA Europa League match between the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club and the Dutch Ajax Football Club in Amsterdam on Thursday.
The Israeli National Security Headquarters told Israeli citizens staying in Amsterdam to “avoid movements in the street and shut oneself in hotel rooms.”
The Dutch Prime Minister, Dick Schoof, said the situation is now calm and that he is “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens.” Israeli PM Netanyahu said he had been in touch with Schoof and called for increased security for Jewish communities in the Netherlands.
Tensions were rising in the lead up to the game last night, Amsterdam police on Wednesday night had reported a group of people pulled a Palestinian flag off the face of a building in the center of the city, and that police “prevented a confrontation” between a group of visitors and taxi drivers.
The Amsterdam Police have not yet commented on the incident but announced Wednesday evening that a “number of safety measures” had been taken before the match to ensure “that everything proceeds safely and orderly,” in a post on X.
Officials in Amsterdam said there will now be extra police on the move in the coming days and extra attention “for the extra security of Jewish institutions and objects.”
Amsterdam authorities will be holding a press conference at 12 p.m. on Friday where additional measures that will be taken today and in the coming days will be announced.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — President Joe Biden hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday as the outgoing administration seeks cease-fire progress in Gaza and Lebanon before President-elect Donald Trump takes power in January.
“I know that you’re working very hard to make sure that this war will end,” Herzog told Biden as they met in the Oval Office. “And that there will be first and foremost security for the people of Israel, as well for the people of Lebanon.”
“Clearly, you’re thinking and working about the day after as well, which perhaps should be a trajectory of hope to the people of the region and the ability to have our neighbors, as well as us, live in security and peace,” Herzog added. “But first and foremost, we have to get the hostages back.”
“I agree,” Biden said.
While in Washington, Herzog’s office said, the president will also meet with Rep. Elise Stefanik — whom Trump has chosen to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime foreign policy adviser to Trump.
Biden hosted Herzog amid international concerns that Israel is still failing to facilitate adequate humanitarian aid flows into Gaza.
The Biden administration gave Israel a 30-day window to “surge” food and emergency aid into the devastated territory last month, warning that failure to address the issue may trigger U.S. laws requiring restrictions on military aid to Israel. The deadline for progress is Tuesday.
A letter signed by several international aid agencies and published Tuesday said Israel has failed to address the concerns. The “situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago,” the groups wrote, per a report by The Associated Press.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar appeared to downplay the situation on Monday, telling reporters that “the issue would be solved.”
Herzog’s visit comes as the Trump transition operation picks up steam, and shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted his recent close contact with the president-elect.
Netanyahu said this week he had spoken with Trump three times since the Nov. 5 election, describing the conversations as “very good and important talks designed to further enhance the steadfast bond between Israel and the U.S.”
Axios reported that Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer — long a close confidante of Netanyahu — also met with Trump on Sunday at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump is expected to loom large over Biden’s last months of diplomacy in the Middle East, as his administration seeks an end to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, plus the release of dozens of hostages — among them four Americans — taken by Palestinian militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack into southern Israel.
Trump’s first term saw close U.S.-Israel alignment. The incoming president is expected to cement American backing for Netanyahu’s government and revive his “maximum pressure” approach to Iran.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have framed Tehran as the “head of the octopus” funding and directing attacks against their nation.
Netanyahu said this week of his conversations with Trump, “We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect.”
ABC News’ Bruno Nota and Dana Savir contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Three Americans who the State Department said were wrongfully detained in China for years are back on U.S. soil as part of a prisoner swap, a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the deal told ABC News.
The State Department announced that Mark Swidan, of Houston, Texas, Kai Li, of Long Island, New York, and John Leung, a permanent resident of Hong Kong, would soon be “reunited with their families for the first time in many years.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke to Li, Leung and Swidan during their travel back to America.
“I told them how glad I was that they were in good health and that they’ll soon be reunited with their loved ones,” Blinken said on X.
While the State Department didn’t reveal more details about the deal, a senior official told ABC News the agreement swapped three Chinese nationals who were convicted of espionage.
China agreed to lift an exit ban on an additional American who was being prevented from leaving China, according to the official. The Chinese embassy said it did not have any comment about the release.
Katherine Swidan, Mark Swidan’s mother, posted on her Facebook page an image of her son posing in a U.S. flag emboldened sweatshirt with U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Roger Carstens the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs on the plane.
“My son Free at Last,” she said.
Harrison Li, Kai Li’s son, said in a statement posted on X Wednesday that his father and the other hostages were scheduled to land at to Joint Base San Antonio later that night.
“We are thrilled that Kai is on his way home along with [Mark Swidan] and John Leung. Thank you, [President Joe Biden], and everyone that made this day possible at long last. Please keep bringing them home,” he said in his post.
The three Americans were arrested and held on different charges that U.S. officials and humanitarian groups said were arbitrary and unlawful.
Swidan, 49, was in China in 2012 on business looking to purchase supplies for a company in Houston as well as flooring, fixtures and furniture for his own home. He was sentenced to death in April 2019 after Chinese authorities accused him of involvement with a drug manufacturing operation. The United Nations called the detention a “deprivation of liberty.”
Swidan’s mother recorded a video message in 2022, which was played during a Congressional-Executive Committee on China hearing in September, detailing her son’s chilling arrest.
“While I was on the phone with him at his hotel, I heard a lot of commotion, and he said, ‘Hold on, mom.’ And Chinese police got into his apartment. They said, ‘We need to take you in for questioning,’ and the phone hung up,” Swidan’s mother said in the video.
In a grim promise, Swidan told her he would come home “in the box of ashes, or walking off the plane, but I will come home,” Katherin Swidan said.
Li, 62, a Shanghai-born naturalized citizen who immigrated to the U.S. 35 years ago, had an export business that redistributed products from Boeing and a subsidiary. He was detained immediately upon landing in Shanghai in September 2016, according to a family representative.
Li was sentenced to 10 years for allegedly “furnishing five state secrets to the FBI,” but his family said that those “secrets” were merely “routine communications” that Li had that were “necessary to ensure compliance with US export laws.”
In testimony before the China commission in September, Harrison Li told lawmakers that his father suffered a stroke in prison, lost a tooth and was locked in a cell by himself for three years.
“I have now spent a third of my life missing my dad. Every day, I wake up and shudder at the thought of him crammed into a tiny cell with as many as 11 other people and no climate control, experiencing the mental and physical anguish,” he told the commission.
In April 2021, Leung, 78, was arrested by Chinese authorities.
He was charged with spying and sentenced to death in May 2023 after being “found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated personal property of RMB 500,000,” officials said in a statement translated by ABC. News
An official with knowledge of the negotiations told ABC News the Biden administration met with Chinese officials multiple times over the years to facilitate the releases.
The State Department’s announcement that three Americans are coming home from detention in China comes two months after Pastor David Lin was released after nearly 20 years in prison.
Lin’s daughter, Alice, told ABC News that her family could breathe a full sigh of relief now that others were following her father back to the United States. “We’re overjoyed,” she said.
“For us, this is our first Thanksgiving where we don’t have an empty seat at the table,” Lin said.
Biden himself recently pressed for the releases in a meeting with President Xi Jinping in Peru earlier this month on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, according to a U.S. official.
Two of the Chinese nationals who were swapped for the Americans were sentenced in the last few years for espionage, the official said.
Yanjun Xu, 44, was convicted three years ago of conspiring to and attempting to commit economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. Xu, who was the first Chinese intelligence officer to be extradited to the U.S. for trial, used multiple aliases to target specific companies in the United States and abroad that are recognized as leaders in the field of aviation, prosecutors said. He was serving a 20-year sentence.
Ji Chaoqun, 33, was serving an 8-year sentence after he was convicted in 2022 on one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and one count of making a material false statement to the U.S. Army.
Chaoquun provided an intelligence officer with biographical information on certain individuals, including engineers and scientists who worked for the Department of Defense, for recruitment by the Chinese security department, according to prosecutors.
Representatives of Li and Swidan in the U.S. Congress cheered the announcement of their constituents’ returns.
“I’m overjoyed to hear Mark Swidan is finally on his way home to Texas, just in time for Thanksgiving. Mark suffered for 12 long years in a Chinese prison for a crime he clearly did not commit,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said, apparently referencing drug charges that led to Swidan’s conviction.
“After nearly a decade of imprisonment by the Chinese government, Kai Li is finally on his way back to American soil and to freedom. Over the years, I have worked closely with Mr. Li’s son, Harrison, to speak directly to the highest levels of the Chinese and U.S. governments to advocate for Mr. Li’s release and safe return to his family in Huntington, New York,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Luke Barr and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
