The Assimilation Model of modern human origins in light of current genetic and genomic knowledge

The Assimilation Model (AM) was developed to explain the presence of evidence for small, but not insignificant, anatomical contributions of Eurasian archaic humans (including Neandertals) to modern Eurasians within a framework of the documented African origin of the majority of modern Eurasian ancestry. The AM was based entirely on morphological evidence for introgression in Eurasia and was initially not well supported by genetic studies, including ancient DNA. However, beginning with the publication of the first Neandertal draft genome in 2010, genomic data have consistently demonstrated low levels of archaic human gene flow into modern Eurasian populations and recently have shown modern gene flow into a Siberian Neandertal. Current data also indicate the complexity of archaic-modern human population dynamics during the late Pleistocene, another tenet of the AM. We conclude that the AM is strongly supported by current genetic and genomic data, as well as morphological evidence that has been documented elsewhere.