Denisovan ancestry and population history of early East Asians

We present analyses of the genome of a ~34,000-year-old hominin skull cap discovered in the Salkhit Valley in northeastern Mongolia. We show that this individual was a female member of a modern human population that, following the split between East and West Eurasians, experienced substantial gene flow from West Eurasians. Both she and a 40,000-year-old individual from Tianyuan outside Beijing carried genomic segments of Denisovan ancestry. These segments derive from the same Denisovan admixture event(s) that contributed to present-day mainland Asians but are distinct from the Denisovan DNA segments in present-day Papuans and Aboriginal Australians.

Source: ScienceNOW - October 29, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Massilani, D., Skov, L., Hajdinjak, M., Gunchinsuren, B., Tseveendorj, D., Yi, S., Lee, J., Nagel, S., Nickel, B., Deviese, T., Higham, T., Meyer, M., Kelso, J., Peter, B. M., Pääbo, S. Tags: Genetics, Paleontology reports Source Type: news