Researchers called the human-like group Denisovans after the Denisova Cave, where the remains were found.
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Scientists determined based on ancient tooth DNA that the new group of distant human relatives lived alongside Neanderthals and other early humans thousands of years ago.
Sawyer led the effort to date the tooth, which was found five years ago in Denisova cave in Siberia’s Altai Mountains.
An worldwide team of researchers used DNA sequencing on the two molars and confirmed that the teeth belonged to two males that lived 60,000 years apart from each other.
“We got the first glimpse of genetic variation in Denisovans”, said Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology director and study co-author Svante Paabo in an interview with CSMonitor. This also indicates that Denisovans were alive on Earth at the same as humans and Neanderthals for thousands of years.
With this latest discovery, scientists now have a better chance of properly placing the Denisovans on the human family tree. Comparing the specimens, scientists found that Denisovans were almost as genetically diverse as modern Europeans, and much more so than their close relatives the Neandertals, according to an analysis published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This tooth carries a mtDNA sequence similar to that of Denisova 3. From the assessment, it has been found that Denisovans were present much earlier than thought before.
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A 2013 study showed that at least three kinds of humans – Neanderthals, the enigmatic Denisovans and our species – had amorous trysts leading to children of highly mixed evolutionary heritage. “Denisovans may therefore have been present in southern Siberia over an extended period”. The nuclear DNA sequence diversity among the three Denisovans is comparable to that among six Neandertals, but lower than that among present-day humans.
