Family Gets More Crowded, Evidence Of New Human Relative Found
Friday, April 16th, 2010
From Stone Pages.com.
John Krause and colleagues managed to isolate a complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA from a fragment of finger bone found by Russian researchers in 2008 that weighed only 30mg. This was compared with 54 sequences from modern humans, an early human sequence from Kotenski, Russia, six from Neanderthals, and one each from a chimpanzee and a bonobo. While Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA sequences have on average 202 differences from modern human sequences, the Denisova sequence has almost twice that number.
The director of the Institute’s genetics department, Svante Pääbo said “The results practically blew me away when I heard.” The researchers suggest the Denisova hominid shared a common ancestor with both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, and may have lived alongside them as recently as 30,000 to 48,000 years ago. In turn, this completely new mitochondrial DNA sequence might imply a fourth wave of hominin migration out of Africa.
You might remember a similar point being raised by Andrew (with a far darker ending) on the most recent Weird Things podcast.
