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jpak

(41,757 posts)
Thu Sep 19, 2019, 02:35 PM Sep 2019

This is what mysterious ancient humans might have looked like

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/19/world/denisovan-first-look-scn/index.html

(CNN)We know that mysterious ancient humans called Denisovans once lived alongside Neanderthals, thanks to a few bones and teeth recovered from a cave in Siberia. Now, for the first time, researchers have shared what they might have looked like.

The previously recovered bone fragments include a pinky bone, teeth and a jawbone. Denisovans also left a genetic legacy that lives on today in the DNA of some Asians, Australians and Melanesians. A Denisovan genome was sequenced in 2012 and compared with that of modern humans, revealing the trait.

Denisovans not only interbred with Neanderthals, but with archaic Eurasian humans as well. Because their DNA lives on in some humans today, researchers have reason to believe that they once lived all throughout Asia. Yet, the fossil record is incredibly sparse.

Scientists may have been able to sequence their genome, but this small fossil record made it difficult to piece together their appearance -- until now.

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