New discoveries are changing what we believe of our ancestors

WE are descended from Africans who first arrived in Europe about 45,000 years ago. The newcomers had to adapt to a colder climate and to prolonged winter darkness. It was thought that they lost their black skin, and several other characteristics, relatively quickly but a skeleton found in a Spanish cave has made scientists think again.

Geneticist Carles Lalueza Fox of Barcelona University and his research team present new findings on-line in Nature.

In 2006, climbers discovered the remains of two men in caves high in the Cantabrian Mountains of Northwest Spain. The pair, called ‘La Braña 1’ and ‘La Braña 2’ after the region where they were found, lived around 7,000 years ago. Only a few artefacts and deer bones were found with the skeletons. Thanks to the cool high-altitude conditions, however, the remains were sufficiently well preserved that DNA was extracted from a tooth of La Braña 1, enabling a rough map of his genome to be prepared.