Denisovan + Neanderthal | Found the daughter of 2 types of human

If you are a follower of our blog, you will know that we have curious minds and that we love the almost incredible stories that we often discover. In the case of today's article, we want to talk to you about types of humans. We are increasingly sure that the famous image that shows a group of hominids in single file walking while they are incorporated, losing the hair and reaching the hairless sapiens, is a bit more complicated than that simple illustration.

Types of human on our planet

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types of human

In the Pleistocene era, our planet was inhabited by at least 4 different types of humans; the sapiens, the neandertals , a little known group called denisovanos and a fourth species not yet completely determined.

The latest advances, excavations and DNA analysis found, have revealed that these 4 species not only lived in the same places and at the same time, but also could cross each other and even had offspring, thus mixing their genes.

The latest discovery that supports all these data is the finding of a girl of about 13 years old who was able to die around 50,000 years ago. In particular, a fragment of his skeleton has been discovered that, after having been analyzed, reveals that this girl was the result of a mating between two different types of humans, giving rise to a first generation of crossing of these species.

The results of the tests determine that this girl was the daughter of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan, as revealed by her genome, which confirms that these two species were crossing.

"We knew from previous studies that Neandertals and Denisovans should have had children from time to time" (...) "But I never thought we would be so lucky to find real offspring of the two groups."

Evolutionary geneticist Viviane Slon of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said Germany .

The discovery of these human types, the Denisovanos did not occur until 2010, but since that date they have been making new discoveries and learning more about hominid type.

The Neanderthal and Denisovan human types, with almost total certainty, were from the same original group. What happened at some point, more than 390,000 years ago, is that these two types of humans separated and evolved into two distinct but closely related populations.

These two species coexisted in Eurasia for quite some time, although the evidence of the existence of the Denisovanos is only found in a specific place, where bones appeared; the cave of Denisova in Siberia , although Neanderthal remains were also found there. That does not mean, necessarily, that both species had lived there, but the discovery of this girl with parents of both species strongly confirms that both Neandertals and Danisovas were two groups that knew each other and interacted.

Denny, who is nicknamed this girl, we only know her for a small fragment of bone that was found in a cave, in 2012, by Russian archaeologists. After a protein analysis it was determined that it was the bone of a hominid so it was moved to the Max Planck Institute to study it. The Max Planck Society for the Promotion of Science is a network of scientific research institutes in Germany.

In this institute, the researchers analyzed the bone found that surely corresponded to a part of a tibia, the femur or the humerus. With this hypothesis, the thickness of the bone indicated that Denny could be around 13 years old when he died and radiocarbon dating died in more than 50,000 years ago.

The next step was to sequence Denny's genome from the DNA samples taken from the bone. With the results it was discovered that she was a woman and that her origin was a discovery; his mother was Neanderthal and his father was Denisovan.

"An interesting aspect of this genome is that it allows us to learn about two populations: the Neandertals on the mother's side and the Denisovans on the father's side," said geneticist Fabrizio Mafessoni, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

What Denny's DNA revealed was that his mother was genetically very close to a population of Neanderthals who had lived in Western Europe and not so much of the Neanderthals who had lived in Denisova's cave. This could indicate that Neanderthals were migrating across Europe long before disappearing.

types of human 1

For its part, the DNA of Denny's father was also interesting and also had a story behind it. According to the researchers, the father's DNA could have at least one Neandertal ancestor, so it was also the result of two different types of human.

"Then, from this single genome, we can detect multiple instances of interactions between Neandertals and Denisovans," said geneticist Benjamin Vernot of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

What is interesting is that the two groups remained genetically distinct, instead of intermingling to form a species that incorporated them both. This, the researchers pointed out in their article, could mean that their contact areas were limited, both temporally and geographically.

But Denny is not the first Denisovana identified by DNA analysis, it is actually the fifth.

"It is surprising that we find this half Neanderthal half Denisovana girl among the handful of ancient individuals whose genomes have been sequenced"

Evolutionary geneticist Svante Pääbo, Director of the Evolutionary Genetics Department of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and lead author of the study, said.

"The Neanderthals and the Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to get to know each other, but when they did, they had to mate frequently, much more than we thought."

What did you think of the article? Do not you find surprising all the information we can extract from a single piece of ancient bone? What do you think of these types of human whose origins were two different species?


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