Svante Pääbo can make bones speak like few. The Swede, who is researching in Germany, has co-founded his field: Paleogenetics. 1984 he cloned a mummy as a PhD student, 13 years later he presented world with first DNA sequence of a Neanderthal man. Pääbo had experience with sensations. Neverless, he was not sure wher his colleagues from Max Planck Institute (MPI) for evolutionary anthropology in Leipzig were correct this time too. “At first I thought y were a little confused in lab,” says Pääbo. Because for what he and his research team wanted to find re, so far, only conjectures had been employed.
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In spring of 2017, scientists were investigating genome of small fragments, which came from eir an upper arm or a thigh. The discovery comes from famous Denisovans cave in today’s sourn Siberia. She had already given Denisovans people ir name, extinct relatives of man. In area around cave, Neanderthals also went hunting. Some of m were migrated from eastern to western Eurasia.
However, DNA that team investigated was not asDenisovanerable to Neanderthals or humans. The researchers had to deal with Ergbut of a hybrid, a direct follow-up of two groups, who was at least 13 years old when she died. Mor: Neanderthal. Far: Denisovaner. She lived about 90,000 years ago.
Siberian long-distance relationship © time-graphics
It is first time that researchers can prove by bone that Neanderthals and Denisovaner have paired, says Pääbo, and that y have done it more often than previously thought. The results will be published this week in nature.
Still 2012, no one thought it would ever come that far. At that time Russian archaeologists were at work in Russian Altai valley, around nothing but lush green mountains and lakes, on average re is less than one resident per square kilometer. The researchers were looking for pieces of bone. Routine. In Denisovans Cave, remnants of a Neanderthal man had been found in past. And 2008 also finger bone of a hirto unknown human form: Denisovaners. Later, archaeologists found still jaw teeth and a small piece of skull blanket.
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From ir findings y concluded that Denisovaner must have been larger and more robust than Neanderthal man from Europe. These “impressive individuals”, as Pääbo calls m, developed more than 390,000 years ago from a type of former people who also produced Neanderthals. About 40,000 years ago Denisovaner disappeared again. Although ir remains have been found only in a cave, researchers assume that y populated most of Asian continent. In order to get more answers to many open questions, PÄÄBO has established a laboratory in Beijing that leads one of his former PhD students. She wants to analyze DNA of Chinese finds re.
This article comes from time No. 35/2018. Here you can read entire output.
The Russian archaeologists, who had been looking for new pieces of bone in Denisovans Cave, sent ir new finds 2012 to Oxford archaeologist Tom Higham, one of co-authors of now published study. A found object aroused his attention especially. When he analyzed its composition, he found out that it had to belong to a being of genus Homo. When fragment later came to Germany for analysis, team at Leipzig Max Planck Institute dug deeper into DNA: Their findings show authors of Nature study that two groups must have crossed not only once, but at least twice. The Denisovaner far already possessed Neanderthal DNA. It came from a different gene pool than that of mor.
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“From previous studies, we already knew that Neanderthals and Denisovaner have occasionally witnessed offspring,” says Viviane Slon of Leipzig MPI, who cooperated in study. But, “I never thought we could be so lucky to come across a direct descendant of two groups.”
Svante Pääbo believes that although two archaic human types have met very seldom – “but if y have, y have witnessed children with each or relatively often”. Denisovaner and Neanderthals, which suggests new study, seemed to have met without prejudice in plains of Siberia.
