A one-two punch of human migrations into Asia, including early interbreeding with the mysterious Denisovans, also emerges from an inspection of an Australian aboriginal man’s DNA, led by geneticist Morten Rasmussen of the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Those results appear in a paper published online September 22 in Science. Both new reports advance the idea that, after leaving Africa, modern humans interacted with a greater number of humanlike groups than are documented in the fossil record, remarks anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Now that scientists can isolate ancient DNA from nondescript bits of bone, “we’re discovering lost peoples whose existence we never suspected,” Hawks says. Several Chinese sites have yielded hominid fossils that may come from Denisovans, says anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. These fossils date to between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago and don’t appear to him to belong to Homo sapiens or Homo erectus, a possible direct ancestor of modern humans. “Denisovan genetic material in New Guinea, Melanesia and Australia implies that this ancient group peopled a territory much broader than the southern part of Siberia where it was first identified,” Hublin says. An initial human spread into Asia included ancestors of groups now living in eastern Oceania, some of whom interbred with Denisovans, Reich’s group concludes. Earlier evidence from the same team indicated that New Guineans and residents of neighboring Bougainville Island inherited 4 to 6 percent of their DNA from Denisovans, a sister group of Neandertals (SN: 1/15/11, p. 10). A second migratory wave brought ancestors of present-day East Asians and Indonesians, who didn’t dally with Denisovans. Intriguingly, H. sapiens interbred with Neandertals upon reaching western Asia (SN: 6/5/10, p. 5) and with Denisovans upon reaching southeastern Asia, says molecular anthropologist Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, a study coauthor with Reich. In both instances modern human populations contained relatively few individuals, creating pressure to mate with outsiders in order to expand group numbers, Stoneking speculates. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334612/title/Humans_reached_Asia_in_two_waves
No. They are implying that there is some evidence of interbreeding with Neanderthals in "western" population and with Denisovans in "eastern" populations, including Australian aborigines.
They screwed any thing they set their eye on . It is like us suppose you are in a jungle and suddenly you see a female, are you going to ask her for he ancestors ?
I think it is fair to say that populations that migrated out of Africa would have Neanderthal DNA, and possibly that of other hominids. What they found when they sequenced the genome of a pure blooded Aboriginal (from a 90 year old hair sample), that they also interbred with Denisovans, as well as Neanderthals in that first wave of migration and that Denisovans may have vanished by the second migration. Like other populations outside Africa, the Australian Aboriginal man owes small chunks of his genome to Neanderthals4. More surprisingly, though, his ancestors also interbred with another archaic human population known as the Denisovans. This group was identified from 30,000–50,000-year-old DNA recovered from a finger bone found in a Siberian cave5. Until now, Papua New Guineans were the only modern human population whose ancestors were known to have interbred with Denisovans. A second study incorporating genomic surveys from different Aboriginal Australians paints an even clearer picture of their ancestors' exploits with the Denisovans. Researchers led by Mark Stoneking at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, calculated the portion of Denisovan ancestry found in the genomes of 243 people representing 33 Asian and Oceanian populations. Patterns of Denisovan interbreeding in human populations could reveal human migration routes through Asia, reasoned the team. The paper is published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics6. This comparison revealed a patchwork in which some populations, including Australian Aboriginals, bore varying levels of Denisovan DNA, while many of their neighbours, like the residents of mainland Southeast Asia, contained none. Stoneking says that this pattern hints at at least two waves of human migration into Asia: an early trek that included the ancestors of contemporary Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans and some other Oceanians, followed by a second wave that gave rise to the present residents of mainland Asia. Some members of the first wave (though not all of them) interbred with Denisovans. However, the Denisovans may have vanished by the time the second Asian migrants arrived. This also suggests that the Denisovan's range, so far linked only to a cave in southern Siberia, once extended to Southeast Asia and perhaps Oceania. [Source]
German spelling underwent reform at the end of the 19th century, and the silent H was removed from words spelled with TH, including der Thal, "valley." Most toponyms within Germany were also re-spelled to conform, so the Neander Valley is now written Neandertal instead of Neanderthal. However, the name of the extinct hominid species Neanderthal Man had already spread outside Germany's borders, and the Modern Latin taxonomic identifier Homo neanderthalensis was already established. So outside of Germany, and anywhere within the scientific community, the H is retained in "Neanderthal."
No idea. They have only found a few bones in a cave in Siberia and the information gathered was enough to show a distant relation to Neanderthals. THE Denisovans, mysterious cousins of the Neanderthals, occupied a vast realm stretching from the chill expanse of Siberia to the steamy tropical forests of Indonesia - suggesting the third human of the Pleistocene displayed a level of adaptability previously thought to be unique to modern humans. Our first tantalising glimpse of the Denisovans came last year with DNA analysis of a bone and tooth found in a Siberian cave. The DNA was distinct enough from Neanderthals' to suggest tens of thousands of years of independent evolution. [Source] Does it matter what they looked like? Safe to say that a very large portion of the human population carries genes from Neanderthals and/or from the Denisovans. And interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans may have been beneficial to Homo sapiens after they migrated out of Africa.
Well yes it matters what they looked like ...wtf Bells. I am curious if there is any notable traits they share with Aborigines. Just like how they figure red hair might be a handmedown from Neanderthals to Gingers.
They did not just breed with the people who migrated down into Australia and became known as the "Aboriginals" though. I guess you would have to look at all the groups that are known to have interbred with them and try to find a common trait: It has recently been shown that ancestors of New Guineans and Bougainville Islanders have inherited a proportion of their ancestry from Denisovans, an archaic hominin group from Siberia. However, only a sparse sampling of populations from Southeast Asia and Oceania were analyzed. Here, we quantify Denisova admixture in 33 additional populations from Asia and Oceania. Aboriginal Australians, Near Oceanians, Polynesians, Fijians, east Indonesians, and Mamanwa (a “Negrito” group from the Philippines) have all inherited genetic material from Denisovans, but mainland East Asians, western Indonesians, Jehai (a Negrito group from Malaysia), and Onge (a Negrito group from the Andaman Islands) have not. These results indicate that Denisova gene flow occurred into the common ancestors of New Guineans, Australians, and Mamanwa but not into the ancestors of the Jehai and Onge and suggest that relatives of present-day East Asians were not in Southeast Asia when the Denisova gene flow occurred. [Source]
Nope. They only identified it after studying a 90 year old hair sample from a pure blooded Aboriginal. Prior to this, it was thought that the people from Papua New Guinea were the only population to carry the Denisovan genes. Now they know that at least 33 groups from across the region carry it. Aboriginals are only the new group to be thrown into the mix.
