Origins of the human genome

Comparisons of specific DNA sequences between humans and their closest living relative, the chimpanzee, reveal 99 percent identity, although the homology drops to 96 percent if insertions and deletions in the organization of those sequences are taken into account. This degree of sequence variation between humans and chimpanzees is only about 10-fold greater than that seen between two unrelated humans. From comparisons of the human genome with the genomes of other species, it is clear that the genome of modern humans shares common ancestry with the genomes of all other animals on the planet and that the modern human genome arose between 150,000 and 300,000 years ago.

Ongoing collaboration between archaeologists, anthropologists, and molecular geneticists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute in the United States has enabled sequence comparisons between modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis). The data obtained so far demonstrate that modern humans and Neanderthals share about 99.5 percent genome sequence identity; some scientists have claimed that sequence identity may actually be as high as 99.9 percent.

Research suggests that populations of H. sapiens split from H. neanderthalensis ancestral populations perhaps as recently as 370,000 years ago and likely shared a common ancestor some 500,000–700,000 years ago. Genomic studies have indicated that there was almost no interbreeding between H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. This suggests that when Neanderthals, the last of the Homo relatives of modern humans, became extinct about 30,000 years ago, only modern humans were left to populate Earth. However, other research has revealed that modern H. sapiens in Eurasia, specifically peoples in Europe, China, and Papua New Guinea, have genomes that are more similar to the Neanderthal genome than they are to the genomes of modern H. sapiens in Africa. Scientists estimate that 1 to 4 percent of DNA of modern Eurasians is shared with Neanderthals, a level of similarity that is not found between Neanderthals and modern Africans. These findings indicate that limited interbreeding and gene flow took place between Neanderthals and ancestral H. sapiens populations after the latter migrated out of Africa but before they dispersed to other parts of the world.

Comparing the DNA sequences of groups of modern humans from different continents also allows scientists to define the relationships and even the ages of these different populations. By combining these genetic data with archeological and linguistic information, anthropologists have been able to discern the origins of Homo sapiens in Africa and to track the timing and location of the waves of human migration out of Africa that led to the eventual spread of humans to other continents of the globe. For example, genetic evidence indicates that the first humans migrated out of Africa approximately 60,000 years ago, settling in southern Europe, the Middle East, southern Asia, and Australia. From there, subsequent and sequential migrations brought humans to northern Eurasia and across what was then a land bridge to North America and finally to South America.

As humans migrated across the continents, sequence variations arose that became differentially fixed in different populations. Some variations likely reflect what are called founder effects, changes in gene frequency that occur in small populations. Founder effects are generally characterized by genes that are expressed with increasing frequency from one generation to the next and can be traced back to the original founders of the population. Other variations reflect differential selective pressures at work. For example, populations living in equatorial climates were under strong selective pressure that favoured dark skin colour to protect against extreme sun exposure, thereby decreasing the deleterious health effects caused by sunburn and skin cancer. In contrast, populations migrating to more polar latitudes, where levels of sun exposure are relatively low, experienced strong selective pressure that favoured light skin colour, thereby facilitating the absorption of sunlight by the skin for the synthesis of vitamin D. In northern Europe and Scandinavia, therefore, individuals with genetic variations leading to lighter skin colour were less likely to become vitamin D deficient and suffer from the bone disease known as rickets.