A previously unknown human ancestor may have coexisted with Neanderthals and early modern humans, German researchers report online in Nature today (March 24).
For the first time, the scientists identified the novel hominin using mitochondrial gene sequencing of bone fragments, not fossils. The genomic analysis also revealed a hitherto-unknown migration from Africa to Eurasia just under one million years ago. "It's such a surprise," said Terence Brown, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Manchester, who was not involved in the study. "You start to think, how complete is our knowledge of ancient human ancestors?"
"While most of us are convinced that other humans existed, the idea that we might be able to identify them is rather a different thing," said Guido Barbujani, a population geneticist at the University of Ferrara, Italy, also not a co-author. "In this case, the remarkable achievement is that [the analysis] is off just a ...
