Imagine uncovering a long-lost branch of your family tree—one that lived 42,000 years ago, in a world completely alien to ours. That’s what happened to a team of scientists led by Ludovic Slimak in 2015 when they discovered the remains of a Neanderthal in France’s Rhône Valley. But this wasn’t just any Neanderthal; this was “Thorin,” a name Slimak chose to honor the last of Tolkien’s dwarven kings, an apt title for what might be one of the last Neanderthals in Europe. This find turned out to be much more than bones and teeth; it shook the very roots of what we thought we knew about human history.
“Thorin”: The Last Neanderthal
Slimak and his team had been digging through layers of history at Grotte Mandrin since 1998, but in 2015, they stumbled upon a piece of jawbone that was different from anything they had found before. It belonged to a Neanderthal who had lived towards the species’ last days on Earth. Over the next few years, they continued finding fragments—a tooth here, a bit of bone there—enough to piece together a rough picture of this individual. By dating these remains, they determined that Thorin lived around 42,000 years ago, right before the Neanderthals disappeared. Slimak saw in Thorin a symbol of an ending, a final chapter in the story of the Neanderthal lineage.
But there was something unique about Thorin. While other Neanderthals were known to have mingled with neighboring groups and even interbred with early modern humans, this Neanderthal’s genetic code told a different story.
A Hidden Lineage: 50,000 Years of Isolation
After sequencing Thorin’s DNA, Slimak’s team found a shocking detail: Thorin’s lineage had been entirely isolated from other Neanderthal groups for around 50,000 years. That’s over twice as long as human civilization has existed. Despite living in close proximity to other populations, there were no signs of genetic exchange between Thorin’s group and other Neanderthals—or with the Homo sapiens nearby.
Imagine that! You have neighbors just a short walk away, yet your entire community manages to stay genetically distinct for millennia. This wasn’t a small genetic variation, either; the analysis showed high levels of homozygosity, suggesting inbreeding, which would have been more common in an isolated population. Slimak’s discovery suggested that these Neanderthals were living a kind of “end-of-the-road” existence, cut off from other groups even as humanity itself was undergoing monumental shifts.
Rewriting the Neanderthal Story
Before this discovery, the prevailing theory was that Neanderthals had disappeared largely because of interactions (and competition) with Homo sapiens. But Thorin’s DNA raised new questions. If some Neanderthals, like Thorin’s group, lived in isolation for tens of thousands of years without mingling, was their extinction more about circumstances than competition? Were they already on a separate evolutionary path, doomed to fade out without much fanfare?
Slimak’s work challenges the idea that Neanderthals were inevitably outcompeted by Homo sapiens. His findings suggest a story with more nuance, where some Neanderthal populations lived on the fringes, isolated and slowly dwindling as their numbers declined. Thorin’s community might have been one of these isolated groups, managing to survive in a region that allowed them to persist, but only just.
A Shifting Paradigm in Human Evolution
The discovery of Thorin’s isolation has rippling implications. Slimak noted that we may have to rethink how human evolution unfolded. How could populations survive in such extreme isolation, especially in an environment where other groups were relatively close? And why didn’t they interbreed with Homo sapiens, even though they lived within what could have been a few days’ walk?
These revelations are forcing scientists to question earlier assumptions. As Slimak put it, “Everything must be rewritten about the greatest extinction in humanity and our understanding of this incredible process that will lead Homo sapiens to remain the only survival of humanity.” In other words, this discovery isn’t just about one isolated Neanderthal; it’s about redefining an entire chapter of human history.
Thorin’s story is still unfolding, with ongoing research aiming to understand not only how this group lived but why they remained so isolated. Slimak and his team are examining clues like the tools Thorin’s group used, which differed from those of other nearby Neanderthals. The Rhône Valley may hold even more secrets about our ancient relatives, ones that could reshape our understanding of what it meant to be a Neanderthal—and why their story ended while ours continued.
In the end, Thorin’s remains give us a window into a time when multiple types of humans coexisted but ultimately diverged. While Thorin’s lineage may have vanished, his DNA continues to tell a story that challenges and deepens our understanding of the human journey, and maybe that’s the best legacy any “last of the lineage” could leave.
