Outstanding questions in the study of archaic hominin admixture.

Bibliographic Collection: 
APE
Publication Type: Journal Article
Authors: Wolf, Aaron B; Akey, Joshua M
Year of Publication: 2018
Journal: PLoS Genet
Volume: 14
Issue: 5
Pagination: e1007349
Date Published: 2018 05
Publication Language: eng
ISSN: 1553-7404
Abstract:

The complete sequencing of archaic and modern human genomes has revolutionized the study of human history and evolution. The application of paleogenomics has answered questions that were beyond the scope of archaeology alone-definitively proving admixture between archaic and modern humans. Despite the remarkable progress made in the study of archaic-modern human admixture, many outstanding questions remain. Here, we review some of these questions, which include how frequent archaic-modern human admixture was in history, to what degree drift and selection are responsible for the loss and retention of introgressed sequences in modern human genomes, and how surviving archaic sequences affect human phenotypes.

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007349
Alternate Journal: PLoS Genet.