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Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia.

Neanderthal Mother, Denisovan Father! Concrete Proof that Hybrid Hominin Families Did Exist

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Together with their sister group the Neanderthals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. "We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together," says Viviane Slon, researcher at the MPI-EVA and one of three first authors of the study. "But I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups."

The ancient individual is only represented by a single small bone fragment. "The fragment is part of a long bone, and we can estimate that this individual was at least 13 years old," says Bence Viola of the University of Toronto. The bone fragment was found in 2012 at Denisova Cave (Russia) by Russian archaeologists. It was brought to Leipzig for genetic analyses after it was identified as a hominin bone based on its protein composition.

This bone fragment ('Denisova 11') was found in 2012 at Denisova Cave in Russia by Russian archaeologists and represents the daughter of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. (T. Higham/ University of Oxford)

"An interesting aspect of this genome is that it allows us to learn things about two populations -- the Neanderthals from the mother's side, and the Denisovans from the father's side," explains Fabrizio Mafessoni from the MPI-EVA who co-authored the study. The researchers determined that the mother was genetically closer to Neanderthals who lived in western Europe than to a Neanderthal individual that lived earlier in Denisova Cave. This shows that Neanderthals migrated between western and eastern Eurasia tens of thousands of years before their disappearance.

View of the entrance to the Denisova Cave archaeological site, Russia. (Bence Viola/ Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

Analyses of the genome also revealed that the Denisovan father had at least one Neanderthal ancestor further back in his family tree. "So from this single genome, we are able to detect multiple instances of interactions between Neanderthals and Denisovans," says Benjamin Vernot from the MPI-EVA, the third co-author of the study.

"It is striking that we find this Neanderthal/Denisovan child among the handful of ancient individuals whose genomes have been sequenced," adds Svante Pääbo, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the MPI-EVA and lead author of the study. "Neanderthals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet. But when they did, they must have mated frequently -- much more so than we previously thought."

Male and female Homo neanderthalensis in the Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann, Germany. (UNiesert/Frank Vincentz/Abuk SABUK/CC BY SA 3.0)

Top Image: Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia. Source: Petra Korlević

The article, originally titled ‘Neanderthal mother, Denisovan father! Hybrid fossil was originally published on Science Daily.

Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "Neanderthal mother, Denisovan father! Hybrid fossil: Newly-sequenced genome sheds light on interactions between ancient hominins." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 August 2018.

References:

Viviane Slon, Fabrizio Mafessoni, Benjamin Vernot, Cesare de Filippo, Steffi Grote, Bence Viola, Mateja Hajdinjak, Stéphane Peyrégne, Sarah Nagel, Samantha Brown, Katerina Douka, Tom Higham, Maxim B. Kozlikin, Michael V. Shunkov, Anatoly P. Derevianko, Janet Kelso, Matthias Meyer, Kay Prüfer, Svante Pääbo. The genome of the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Nature, 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x

 

Comments

Science should not leap to conclusions. Instead, they should simply record their evidence and see where it leads

zxq9 is right! This find does NOT prove that Hominids mated with other Hominids, much less Human breeding. Anyone who saw the OJ Simpson Trial, knows that DNA degrades rapidly. Add that to the Fact that ancient Fossils can only extract the Matriarchal DNA, this is just more to justify evolutionary belief systems. Consider thi8s: if the Denisovan killed & ingested a Neanderthal juvenile, later excreted this Bone fragment which 'stewed' in the Feces for several hund Thousand yrs, I bet the DNA result would be an exact match!?

This discovery is far from being proof that hybrid hominin families existed, rather that they mated at least occasionally. We may have discovered the remnants of a “war baby”, for example, proving nothing more than the existence of dominance rape in pre-historical times (which, as this occurs in other primates, seems likely), or the existence of kidnapping, or the existence of any other circumstance where sexual involvement between groups may occur.

I recognize that the researchers are excited about the discovery (it is interesting and novel, after all) but the hyperbole and leap to conclusions is a bit much.

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