IF you’re more of a morning person it could be a sign that you share some genetic material with Neanderthal ancestors.
That’s according to a new study that claims Neanderthals may have created early risers due to how they lived their lives hundreds of thousands of years ago.
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The study has been published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
It focused on the genetic makeup of Neanderthals who died out around 40,000 years ago.
Before that, the species lived in Eurasia for over 400,000 years.
It’s thought the environments they lived in created a lineage-specific genetic variation.
Scientists think humans and Neanderthals overlapped in Eurasia for over 30,000 years.
During this time, the two interbred, and some genetics were shared and created.
Researchers now suspect some evolutionary adaptations that Neanderthals gained while living at higher altitudes where they had more daylight may have been passed on to some humans.
They focused 246 circadian genes that are thought to affect our internal body clock.
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The experts spotted differences in the internal body clocks of archaic hominins like Neanderthals and modern humans.
They concluded it was possible for some humans to have inherited circadian clocks from Neanderthals and that’s why they’re more inclined to be an early riser.
Lead author John A Capra said: “By combining ancient DNA, large-scale genetic studies in modern humans, and artificial intelligence, we discovered substantial genetic differences in the circadian systems of Neanderthals and modern humans.
“Then by analyzing the bits of Neanderthal DNA that remain in modern human genomes we discovered a striking trend: many of them have effects on the control of circadian genes in modern humans and these effects are predominantly in a consistent direction of increasing propensity to be a morning person.
“This change is consistent with the effects of living at higher latitudes on the circadian clocks of animals and likely enables more rapid alignment of the circadian clock with changing seasonal light patterns.”
The researchers plan to apply their analysis to other traits found in modern humans.
