Fig. 8

Scheme of the hypothetical Great Admixture event that led to formation of modern humans. Around 1 MYA two archaic lineages a and b separated from each other. These two lineages a and b are represented by the yellow and blue arms respectively. The gradient color scheme in these two arms shows appearance and gradual accumulation of novel GVs in each of the two lineages. The grey branches at 0.7 MYA time point shows the Neanderthal separation. WN, EN and D represents western Neanderthal, eastern Neanderthal and Denisovan respectively. The “Great Admixture” is represented by the appearance of the green color around the 0.2 MYA time point (right after the yellow and blue arms join each other). The modern populations are represented by the three descending branches following the “Great Admixture” event. AF, AS, and EU denotes African, Asian and European populations respectively