A replica of a Denisovan finger bone fragment found in a cave in 2008WIKIMEDIA, THILO PARGDenisovans, an ancient hominin species long unknown to science, have yielded another of their secrets: At least two genetically-distinct populations of the species interbred with Homo sapiens, according to a genomics analysis published yesterday (March 15) in Cell.
“This is a breakthrough paper,” David Reich, who studies ancient DNA at Harvard University and did not participate in the study, tells The Washington Post. “It's a definite third interbreeding event,” adding to previously known Denisovan and Neanderthal mixtures, he says.
Denisovans were discovered when a few bones and a tooth from a member of the species were found in a Siberian cave in 2008. Reich and his colleagues later sequenced the DNA found in the bones, compared it to the genomes of other ancient and modern humans, and reported that it belonged to a species distinct from modern humans or Neanderthals. That study also revealed that about 5 percent of the genomes of modern Melanesians, people from the islands of Oceania, derives from Denisovans.
...
