New research based on DNA comparison of modern men and archaic humans (hominins) has elucidated new evidence of the interrelations of humans and hominin in Europe and worldwide according to report at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences web site posted on October 31, 2011.
DNA comparisons of 1,500 modern day men (selected to encompass a global representative population) with the recently decoded genomes of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan has led scientists to determine that Southeast Asians have a higher contribution of Denisovan DNA than any other group of peoples in the world. This finding includes the people of Oceania who have the second highest Denisovan DNA component in their DNA.
Denisovans are archaic humans named for the Denisova Cave in Siberia where their remains were discovered.
Denisovan DNA was also discovered in northern Chinese populations, in the areas of the present Pakistan India border, and in North American and South American native populations but not to the extent that it was in the inhabitants of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
The researchers postulate the commingling of DNA occurred between the humans that emerged from Africa with the European Denisovans prior to any migration of the hybrids to Southeast Asia and beyond.
Paper
"Archaic human ancestry in East Asia"
Authors
Pontus Skoglund a,1 and Mattias Jakobsson a,b,1
aDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and bScience for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
Comments