Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/s...-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?_r=0

Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries.

In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years.

The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans. Until now, Denisovans were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of where the new DNA was found.

The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years. It is possible, for example, that there are many extinct human populations that scientists have yet to discover. They might have interbred, swapping DNA. Scientists hope that further studies of extremely ancient human DNA will clarify the mystery. ......

More at link.....

Amazing that there are no bones to show what these Denisovans would look like, just their dna.

I assume it was not actually fully fossilized otherwise the DNA would have been replaced by minerals from the environment. The bone looks remarkably well preserved.

http://spanishnewstoday.com/atapuer...’s-oldest-human-dna_19164-a.html#.Uqhsvif2a40

http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/whats-hot/mystery-pit-bones-atapuerca-spain

http://www.newscientist.com/article...g-up-in-spains-pit-of-bones.html#.Uqht6if2a40

DEEP inside the Atapuerca cave system in northern Spain, 30 metres beneath the surface, lies the Sima de los Huesos, or the "pit of bones". The remains of at least 28 ancient humans have been found at the bottom of this 12-metre-long vertical shaft. Now a thigh bone pulled out of the pit has yielded 400,000-year-old DNA – by far the oldest human DNA ever sequenced.

How interesting!



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