Choose fontsize:
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
News
jamiepearce
January 17, 2024, 07:59:51 PM
 Evening.been out the picture for a few years.is there any weekenders coming up this year?
rookypair
January 04, 2024, 09:57:08 AM
 I think everyone has dispersed in all directions. Good to see some of the original peeps posting to 
rjm
January 03, 2024, 11:26:38 PM
 This site is pretty dead now! 
TOMTOM
January 03, 2024, 05:38:50 PM
 HI IM HERE ANY RALLYS
dances with badgers
December 28, 2023, 09:40:42 AM
 the dreaded social media lol
DEADLOCK
December 27, 2023, 08:26:38 AM
 Still going social media plays a big part 
dances with badgers
December 26, 2023, 10:41:07 PM
 This site used to be amazing, where has everybody gone? 

View All

 

Currently there is 1 User in the Chatroom!





Click here if you
need van signs


Or here if you
need magnetic signs


Or here if you
need a
Corporate Video Production Company in Milton Keynes

See our
privacy policy here


Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Cave girl was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan  (Read 2363 times)
Neil
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 4973



« on: August 23, 2018, 12:05:01 PM »

By Helen Briggs    22 August 2018


Once upon a time, two early humans of different ancestry met at a cave in Russia.

Some 50,000 years later, scientists have confirmed that they had a daughter together.

DNA extracted from bone fragments found in the cave show the girl was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.

The discovery, reported in Nature, gives a rare insight into the lives of our closest ancient human relatives.

Neanderthals and Denisovans were humans like us, but belonged to different species.


"We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together," says Viviane Slon, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany.

"But I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups."

Is everyone part Neanderthal?

Present-day, non-African humans have a small proportion of their DNA that comes from Neanderthals.

Some other non-African populations, depending on where they live, also have a fraction of their DNA that comes from an Asian people known as Denisovans.


 
Excavations at the cave

The fact the genes have been passed down the generations shows that interbreeding must have happened.

However, the only known site where fossil evidence of both Denisovans and Neanderthals has been found is at Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.

And very few - less than 20 - so-called archaic humans (those belonging to species other than our own, Homo sapiens) have had their genomes sequenced.

"Out of this very little number we find one individual that has half-and-half mixed ancestry, " Dr Slon told BBC News.

When other studies are taken into account, "you start to get a picture that over all of our evolutionary history humans always mixed with each other".

When and where did Neanderthals and Denisovans live?

Neanderthals and Denisovans are known to have overlapped in time in Eurasia.

The two groups lived until about 40,000 years ago; Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in the east.

As Neanderthals migrated eastwards, they may have encountered Denisovans at times, as well as early modern humans.

"Neanderthals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet," says Svante Pääbo, director of MPI-EVA.

"But when they did, they must have mated frequently - much more so than we previously thought."

What do we know about the girl and her family?

The girl's story has been pieced together from a single fragment of bone found in the Denisova cave by Russian archaeologists several years ago.


The cave is the only place where fossils of Neanderthals and Denisovans have been found

It was brought to Leipzig for genetic analysis.

"The fragment is part of a long bone, and we can estimate that this individual was at least 13 years old," says Bence Viola of the University of Toronto.

The researchers deduced that the girl's mother was genetically closer to Neanderthals who lived in western Europe than to a Neanderthal individual who lived earlier in Denisova Cave.

This shows that Neanderthals migrated between western and eastern Europe and Asia tens of thousands of years before they died out.

Genetic tests also revealed that the Denisovan father had at least one Neanderthal ancestor further back in his family tree.


* _103128786_denisovacaveeastchamber.jpg (41.88 KB, 624x351 - viewed 503 times.)
Logged

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boys life when he has a raging urge to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

Mark Twain 1835 - 1910

If anyone wants to sell any S c r a p gold or sovereigns, regardless of condition -  ask me for a price first please.
Val Beechey
Superhero Member
******
Offline Offline

Posts: 6120



« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2018, 12:26:46 PM »

Amazing results though not surprising. It’s been suspected and proved that we (most of us) have mixed genes.
Realy mixed now as we have been invaded by many people over the centuries.
I’ve often wondered if it makes a difference to people’s behaviour. You can’t deny that some are more aggressive than others. Basic instincts ?
Thanks for posting Neil.
Logged

Ever Optimistic, it's out there somewhere - And I Found it

Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  


Home
SimplePortal 2.3.3 © 2008-2010, SimplePortal