An international study published in Current Biology presents the results of the analysis of ancient mitochondrial DNA obtained from eight Neanderthal teeth discovered in Stajnia Cave, Poland. For the first time, the research reconstructs the genetic profile of a small group of Neanderthals from the same site, north of the Carpathians, who lived during the same ancient chronological phase.
"This is an extraordinary result because, for the first time, we are able to observe a small group of at least seven Neanderthals from Central-Eastern Europe who lived around 100,000 years ago," says Andrea Picin, professor at the University of Bologna and coordinator of the research. "In most cases, Neanderthal genetic data come from single fossils or from remains scattered across different sites and periods. At Stajnia, by contrast, it has been possible to reconstruct a small group of individuals, providing for the first time a coherent genetic picture of Neanderthals in this part of Europe."
"We had known for some time that Stajnia Cave preserved exceptional evidence, but these results exceeded our expectations," say Wioletta Nowaczewska of the University of Wrocław and Adam Nadachowski of the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences, co-authors of the study. "Being able to identify such an ancient small group of Neanderthals in such a complex site is an important achievement for Polish research and for the study of Neanderthals in Europe."
The discovery also helps us better understand the distribution of a particular Neanderthal maternal lineage in western Eurasia. The mitochondrial DNA of the Stajnia Neanderthals falls within the same branch as that of other individuals found in the Iberian Peninsula, south-eastern France, and the northern Caucasus, suggesting that this genetic component was widely distributed before being replaced by those typical of more recent Neanderthals.
"A particularly fascinating aspect is that two teeth belonging to juvenile individuals and one belonging to an adult share the same mitochondrial DNA," adds Mateja Hajdinjak, co-author of the article and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "This suggests that these individuals might be closely related to each other."
Another important aspect of the study concerns the comparison with the Neanderthal fossil Thorin, discovered in Mandrin Cave in France, which carries a mitochondrial genome similar to that of the Stajnia Neanderthals and has so far been assigned to a chronology of around 50,000 years ago. "Our study is a reminder that the oldest chronologies must be treated with great caution," explains Sahra Talamo, professor at the University of Bologna and co-coordinator of the study. "When radiocarbon values approach the limit of calibration, it is essential not to assign more precision than the data can actually support. In such cases, the comparison between archaeology, radiocarbon dating, and genetics becomes crucial."
From an archaeological point of view, the discovery reinforces the idea that Central-Eastern Europe was not a marginal periphery in Neanderthal history, but rather a key area for understanding population movements, biological connections, and the spread of technological traditions during the Middle Paleolithic. Stajnia Cave and southern Poland thus become a privileged observatory for reconstructing not only the biology of Neanderthals, but also their movements and the connections between groups distributed across wide areas of Europe.
