London: Researchers have stumbled upon the oldest Neanderthal DNA sample. The sample came from an ancient skeleton still buried deep inside a cave in Italy.
The DNA could be up to 170,000-year-old and could one day help form a clearer picture of the Neanderthal life, researchers said.
The sample came from an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human scientists had found amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of the limestone cave of Lamalunga, near Altamura in southern Italy in 1993.
"The Altamura man represents the most complete skeleton of a single nonmodern human ever found," study co-author Fabio Di Vincenzo, a paleoanthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome, was quoted as saying by Live Science.
"Almost all the bony elements are preserved and undamaged," Di Vincenzo added.
The Altamura skeleton bears a number of Neanderthal traits, particularly in the face and the back of the skull.
But it also possesses features that usually aren't seen in Neanderthals - for instance, its brow ridges were even more massive than those of Neanderthals.
Now, new research showed that DNA from a piece of the skeleton's right shoulder blade suggests the Altamura fossil was a Neanderthal.
The shape of this piece of bone also looks Neanderthal, the researchers said. The scientists dated the skeleton to about 130,000 to 170,000 years old.
While previous fragmentary fossils of different Neanderthals provided a partial picture of the Neanderthal life, the Altamura skeleton could help paint a more complete portrait of a Neanderthal, the researchers said.
It may reveal more details about Neanderthals' genetics, anatomy, ecology and lifestyle, they added.
"We have a nearly complete human fossil skeleton to describe and study in detail. It is a dream," Di Vincenzo said.
"His morphology offers a rare glimpse on the earliest phase of the evolutionary history of Neanderthals and on one of the most crucial events in human evolution.
He can help us better understand when - and, in particular, how - Neanderthals evolved," Di Vincenzo explained.
The findings appeared online in the Journal of Human Evolution.
