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An analysis of the whole genome sequences of hundreds of modern-day West Africans, along with those of ancient Neanderthals and Denisovans, points to the existence of a “ghost” species that interbred with Homo sapiens before dying out, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, report yesterday (February 12) in Science Advances.
The finding further complicates an evolutionary history in which different hominin species diverged, only to—in some cases—meet up and swap genes with each other hundreds of thousands of years later. Modern humans have already been found to have interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
In the new study, Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman analyzed the whole-genome sequences of people from four populations living in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia, as well as those from Neanderthal and Denisovan fossils. They found patterns in the genomes of two of the modern groups, Yoruba and Mende, that ...
