Denisovans Mated With Humans, Study Says.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

New research suggests that early humans mated with both Neanderthals as well as Denisovans, a recently-discovered early human species.

 

Genomes from Denisovans, a third early human species, were originally traced to the people of Oceania, but further investigation reveals that genomes can also be found among East Asia populations, the Telegraph reports.

 

LiveScience explains the relation:

 

The Denisovans likely split off from the Neanderthal branch of the hominin family tree about 300,000 years ago, but little else is known about their appearance, behavior or dress.

Researchers also have found "genetic echoes of the Denisovans in modern residents of Pacific islands."

 

National Geographic writes that according to the study, "About one percent of the genetic makeup of people from southern China and the surrounding region comes from ... Denisovans."

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/humans-mated-with-denisovan_n_1070221.html

[Birch]

Yeah, I'd heard that one too. So it would seem that generally speaking, humans also have something like 2% of this DNA (or was it neanderthal?) Anyway, my personal interest in this one is 'So what'?. As in 'What's the consequence'? I can hardly wait for some of the articles to come out justifying all round 'crappy' behaviour or treatment of people based on 'pre-history' DNA tracing. Oh wait, it's already on its way with respect to some 'native' peoples. If I recall the study, those being in Australia.

 

Have you had your gene-purity test^TM yet?

[gendao]

The findings show some measurable Denisovan ancestry amongst some isolated Pacific Islanders, but little to none in mainland Asia:

The latest find suggests that the two human types mated and bore offspring, and their descendants are still alive today in mainland Asia.

 

The new study is based on DNA extracted from a 40,000-year-old Denisovan finger bone discovered in Siberian Russia's Altai Mountains in 2008.

 

A previous study, published by the journal Nature in 2010, investigated the same fossil finger's DNA and found that people indigenous to Papua New Guinea and other Melanesian islands share 4 to 6 percent of their ancestry with the archaic human.

 

That study, however, didn't find any Denisovan genes in mainland Asians.

 

That DNA analysis, led by David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston, also found no trace of Denisovan ancestry in modern humans from mainland Asia.

 

Reich's study instead extends the Denisovan link to people indigenous to Australia, the Philippines, and other islands lying east of the Wallace Line

 

while "there is a component of people outside of Africa that have some archaic admixture, it is never more than 5 percent, so that still means that 95 percent of us is the modern human that left Africa 50,000 years ago."

Hmm, so what exactly is this 5% of "archaic admixture" in non-Africans of an older and different origin than out of Africa 50,000 years ago???

 

5% is a very significant amount, comparable to what separates a chimp from a human!

Edited November 3, 2011 by vortex