A fossilized Neanderthal discovered in a cave system in the Rhône Valley, France, represents an ancient and previously undescribed lineage that diverged from other currently known Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago and remained genetically isolated for more than 50,000 years.

Highlights

• We present the discovery of a Neanderthal body and its genome

• It is one of the last representatives of these populations in Eurasia

• It belongs to an unknown lineage, isolated for 50 ka

• It is similar to Gibraltar Neanderthals, with whom it forms a specific branch

Summary

Neanderthal genomes have been recovered from sites across Eurasia, painting an increasingly complex picture of their populations’ structure that mostly indicates that late European Neanderthals belonged to a single metapopulation with no significant evidence of population structure.

Here, we report the discovery of a late Neanderthal individual, nicknamed “Thorin,” from Grotte Mandrin in Mediterranean France, and his genome. These dentognathic fossils, including a rare example of distomolars, are associated with a rich archeological record of Neanderthal final technological traditions in this region ∼50–42 thousand years ago.

Thorin’s genome reveals a relatively early divergence of ∼105 ka with other late Neanderthals.

Thorin belonged to a population with a small group size that showed no genetic introgression with other known late European Neanderthals, revealing some 50 ka of genetic isolation of his lineage despite them living in neighboring regions.

These results have important implications for resolving competing hypotheses about causes of the disappearance of the Neanderthals.