La Bouchet West

Last night the online geneticists linked to Stephanie Pappas among others. (Apparently Melissa J. Hubisz, Amy L. Williams, and Adam Siepel had hacked Excel.)

This constrains papers from back to 2013 on the various intermixings between Neander up to Vindija, scattered Denisovae, various versions of human, and Homo Erectus. Neander DNA is well-constrained by now, such that we can find it easily in our own genomes. 25% of the whole thing (Vindija clan) can be reconstructed from its scattered remnants.

Here we learn that early humans had mixed with Neanders 300-200 kya: they left that in the Neander genome. There's a limit to what may be found directly without direct DNA. The mix overlaps La Bouchet 240-230 kya - a sort of Indian Summer in the Pleistocene, sharply broken by a freeze before it could really get going. The initial warmth would have enticed some Africans, out; the freeze would have run them back home. Except for the hybrids, left in Eurasia.

This latest article doesn't talk about the later Eemian migrations when hybrids did trickle into Africa.

These first humans and the Neanders who lerrrved them left some remains in Greece (210 kya) and Israel (180 kya). They didn't get further east; they left no trace among the Denisovans.