New amylase paper

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-humans-evolved-starch-digesting-superpower-long-farming
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn0609
The paper I posted a month ago on the amylase gene duplications did not find the duplications in Neanderthals, but this Science paper claims that bits of the duplication can be found in 3 of the existing Neanderthal genomes.  The news article cites the older estimate that Neanderthals and Modern humans diverged 800,000 years ago to claim that the duplication could be much older than the the first paper indicated. The latest estimates puts the divergence at around 500,000 years with an additional migration out of Africa hybridization event around 250,000 years ago.  The duplications could have been transferred to Neanderthal during the subsequent migration out of Africa around 250,000 years ago. Those African modern humans did not establish a viable population outside of Africa and were either absorbed into the Neanderthal population or eventually went extinct.
The news article tries to make a big deal about eating starch and having amylase genes.  Even our prosimian primate ancestors had an amylase gene.  The first duplication occurred in our simian ancestors that were frugivores (fruit eating) and so they had 2 copies.  Another duplication occurred in the common ancestor of the great apes, so Homo started with 3 copies.  Our ancestors obviously ate plants.  The duplication event that the first paper estimated happened around 240,000 years ago occurred long before agriculture, but hunter gatherers of the time were obviously eating plants, and for more modern hunter gatherers it has been estimated that the gatherers supply 70% of the calories of a hunting clan, most of which is plant derived.  So there is no mystery why hunter gatherers may have selected for the duplication before the advent of agriculture.
Domestic dogs have been selected to have duplications of the amylase gene, but cats have not.  One estimate that I recall claimed that cats only had around 5% of the amylase activity in their guts as dogs.
Ron Okimoto