Apparently we’re all a bit Neanderthal

 
Ian Barnes27 February 2014

Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes by Svante Pääbo (Basic Books, £16.99)

Evolutionary biologists are, in general, pretty interesting people to talk to, but rarely would you describe their lives as thrilling. The notion of combining an autobiography with a popular science book may therefore not seem especially compelling. However, in this case both the author and the science are quite extraordinary, and inextricably linked.

Svante Pääbo is the director of the Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and the father of the field of ancient DNA. For the past 20 years his primary goal has been to address a fundamental philosophical question — what is it that makes us human? His approach, however, is neither philosophical nor archaeological, instead relying on the identification of genetic differences between us and our closest (extinct) relative, Neanderthals.

Pääbo takes us both through his life, and through the life of the scientific discipline he created. He was born in mid-Fifties Stockholm to a Nobel Prize-winning father and chemist mother. This might sound like a good start for a biologist but Pääbo and his mother were a secret second family, and he grew up knowing his father largely through the scientific literature.

He rejected a childhood passion for Egyptology to pursue a career in biomedical science. However, the lure of the past proved too strong, and before long he had combined work and hobby by recovering DNA from an Egyptian mummy.

We start somewhere in the middle of the story, with the discovery of the first Neanderthal DNA sequences in 1996. Pääbo has a deft touch when describing the complexities of recovering DNA from 1,000-year-old bone samples. Most vexing of these are the problems of degradation and contamination — while DNA survives over millenial timescales, it is highly fragmented, chemically altered and mixed up with the DNA of those scientists who have touched the specimen.

Pääbo spends some time explaining how he convinced himself these data were accurate, and his excitement at being able to convince others. The resulting publication was a sensation, and while the media focused on the apparent confirmation that our species arose in Africa and was utterly distinct from Neanderthals, the scientific community was impressed by the bold, precise analyses the team had conducted.

Further successes followed. For most scientists, publication in Nature or Science marks the high point of their career. The Leipzig group has produced dozens of papers in these two journals and there are clearly many more to go. Perversely, Pääbo repeatedly expresses his disappointment and frustration at the undeserved prestige these journals brought to the more outlandish scientific claims. But maybe he has a point. By the early Nineties other less careful scientists had moved into the field, and much time was spent trying to differentiate the science from the fiction. It took more than a decade to establish fully the ground rules and expectations for the recovery of ancient DNA, by which time Pääbo had announced a plan to sequence the complete genome of a Neanderthal. The project was finished — a little behind schedule — in 2010. The most astonishing finding was that, outside of Africa, humans carry a small but discernible trace of the Neanderthal genome, as a result of inter-species mating over 50,000 years ago.

What this means for our species remains unclear. Pääbo clearly thrives on complexity and complex situations, be they political, interpersonal or technical. He is also disarmingly honest, with the details of his sexual activity, and an affair with a colleague’s wife, mixed in with the description of how a multi-million-dollar science project is conducted. The contributions of different team members are made clear here, but while each of the steps to the complete genome is carefully described, what is less obvious is where we go next. Although the genome is complete, interpreting it, and understanding our place in evolution, will most likely occupy us for at least another two decades.

Ian Barnes is professor of molecular palaeobiology and research leader at the Natural History Museum.

Go to standard.co.uk/booksdirect to buy this book for £17.09, or phone 0843 060 0029, free UK p&p

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