Modern humans expanded into Eurasia more than 40,000 years ago following their dispersal out of Africa. These Eurasians carried ~2–3% Neanderthal ancestry in their genomes, originating from admixture with Neanderthals that took place sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, probably in the Middle East. In Europe, the modern human expansion preceded the disappearance of Neanderthals from the fossil record by 3,000–5,000 years. The genetic makeup of the first Europeans who colonized the continent more than 40,000 years ago remains poorly understood since few specimens have been studied. Here, we analyse a genome generated from the skull of a female individual from Zlatý kůň, Czechia. We found that she belonged to a population that appears to have contributed genetically neither to later Europeans nor to Asians. Her genome carries ~3% Neanderthal ancestry, similar to those of other Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. However, the lengths of the Neanderthal segments are longer than those observed in the currently oldest modern human genome of the ~45,000-year-old Ust’-Ishim individual from Siberia, suggesting that this individual from Zlatý kůň is one of the earliest Eurasian inhabitants following the expansion out of Africa.

现代人类在四万多年前从非洲扩散到欧亚大陆。这些欧亚人的基因组中携带了约 2-3% 的尼安德特人血统，起源于 50,000 至 60,000 年前的某个时间（可能在中东）与尼安德特人的混合。在欧洲，现代人类的扩张比尼安德特人从化石记录中消失早了 3,000 到 5,000 年。40,000 多年前殖民该大陆的第一批欧洲人的基因构成仍然知之甚少，因为很少有标本被研究过。在这里，我们分析了来自捷克 Zlatý kůň 的女性个体头骨生成的基因组。我们发现她属于一个似乎既没有对后来的欧洲人也没有对亚洲人有遗传贡献的人群。她的基因组带有约 3% 的尼安德特人血统，与其他旧石器时代晚期的狩猎采集者相似。然而，尼安德特人片段的长度比在西伯利亚约 45,000 岁的 Ust'-Ishim 个体的当前最古老的现代人类基因组中观察到的长度更长，这表明来自 Zlatý kůň 的个体是最早的欧亚居民之一随着非洲的扩张。