RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Giving accepted prehistoric history the finger - DNA tests reveal new group of ancestors Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:58 am | |
| The human family has some new members: the Denisovans.
All we have of them is a "pinkie" finger bone and a tooth, found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia.
But DNA extracted from the fossilised finger has revealed the owner, who lived about 30,000 years ago, was a female member of a previously unknown group of ancient people who were neither Neanderthals nor modern humans.
After the tooth of another member of these extinct human relatives was discovered, they were named the Denisovans.
In a technical tour de force, an international team of scientists extracted nuclear DNA from the finger bone and worked out a draft sequence of the full genetic code, or genome, of the ancient female, a young girl.
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