summary
The cave of the States of northern Spain was a hive of activity 105,000 years ago. Artifacts show that its Neanderthals raised stone tools, slaughtered red deer and could have caused fires. They also shed, bled, and removed more subtle clues on the cave floor: their own DNA. Researchers report this week that the dirt in the statues gave the first nuclear DNA from an ancient man who was extracted from sediment. Previous studies have reported shorter and more abundant human mitochondrial DNA in the cave floor, but nuclear DNA, previously available only from bones and teeth, may be much more informative. The sequences reveal the genetic identity and sex of the inhabitants of ancient caves and show that a group of Neanderthals replaced another in the Spanish cave about 100,000 years ago, perhaps after a cooling climate.