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Human ancestors mated with the mysterious Denisovans

Science March 17, 2018
A new study says early humans mated with the mysterious Denisovans more than once. Scientists know very little about them.

A new study suggests that ancient humans mated with the mysterious Denisovans in two separate waves, reports

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Mysterious Denisovans interbred with modern humans more than once: Neanderthals, Denisovans and our ancestors were mixing and mingling a long time ago -- and some of our genetics can be traced back to these archaic humans.

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Our ancestors mated with neanderthals, they mated with denisovans too.

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"[T]hanks to work from Sharon Browning at the University of Washington, we know that Denisovan DNA entered the human gene pool on two occasions," Ed Yong reports.

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“This is a breakthrough paper,” said David Reich, who studies ancient DNA at Harvard University and was not involved with the study. “It's a definite third interbreeding event,” one that adds to the previously known Denisovan and Neanderthal mixtures.

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This could help us understand when the mysterious other ancestors of these tribes migrated, and also which direction was taken. The detection of Denisova DNA would tell us the migration is not likely earlier than the interbreeding with Southern Denisovans approx 40Kya.

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We still don't know what Denisovans looked like, even though our ancestors shagged them twice.

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