Scientists at the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology of the Max Planck Society in Germany analyzed the genome of a woman who lived 34 thousand years ago. It turned out that she inherited 25 percent of her DNA from people who settled in the western part of Eurasia. In addition, she carried the genes of the Denisovans, an extinct human species. The results of scientific work, which reveal new details about the emergence of modern humanity, were published by experts in the journal Science.
The researchers analyzed DNA extracted from the cranial vault of an ancient female human, whose remains were found in the Salkhit Valley in eastern Mongolia. They compared the genome with that of another ancient man from East Asia who lived 40 thousand years ago. Both individuals turned out to be associated more with the Asian population, and not with the European one. However, it turned out that a quarter of the woman's genome came from Europeans, who mixed with the ancient Siberians. This proves that migrations of people inhabiting Eurasia took place already 35 thousand years ago.
Both genomes contain not only the DNA of the Neanderthals, but also the genes of the Denisovans. It also shows that modern humans mixed with other species of the genus Homo 40,000 years ago. However, this mixing took place several times independently of each other. The location of Denisov's DNA in the genome of ancient Asians coincides with the location of that in the representatives of the modern population of East Asia, but not in the inhabitants of Oceania.
According to paleoanthropological data, modern man appeared in Africa in the period 200-400 thousand years ago. At the same time, the main wave of migration took place 60 thousand years ago, although even before it Homo sapiens migrated to Eurasia in small groups. The settlers mingled with other ancient hominids – Neanderthals, Denisovans, and as yet unidentified species.
The Denisovans (Homo altaensis) are an extinct species or subspecies of ancient people, known from fragmentary fossils that were found in the Denisova cave in Altai. Considered a sister group to Neanderthals.
