Our human ancestors.
Modern humans carry Neanderthal genes. This is roughly 2% Neanderthal ancestry in non-African people and 0.5% genes in Africans. It is clear that modern man was not alone on Earth at one time, but for most of our evolutionary history we shared the planet with other human species. In human DNA, scientists have discovered genetic fingerprints of unknown species, which means that our genome contains traces of the genetic material of various ancient people who no longer exist.
Modern man has been the sole inhabitant of planet Earth for only the last 30,000 years. Other hominins are not found here, so the history of our human species and especially where humans really came from is still attracting the attention of scientists. The most conclusive material is DNA.
“We can dig up different types of people not from dirt and fossils, but directly from DNA,” says the professor Joshua Akey, specialist in genetic archaeology. According to him, DNA could provide information not only about extinct people, but also about the development of modern people. Akey was concerned with the study of connections between modern humans on the one hand and Neanderthals and Denisovans on the other. Our direct ancestors met and mated with archaic humans.
Watch a video on the history of early human mating here:
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Source: Youtube
Our Neanderthal genes
Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago, coinciding with the emergence of modern humans, who evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Neanderthals were skilled at making stone tools and were adapted to cold and dark climates. They were characterized by wide noses, thick hair and large eyes, and we still carry some diseases from them, such as diabetes, arthritis and celiac disease.
However, in addition to their genes, human DNA revealed other genes. However, Professor Akey is not sure what species it is. Our human ancestors also contain the genes of Denisovans and other species, probably other archaic forms of humans that inhabited the Earth at the same time.
Neanderthal lovers.
Unknown species?
The unknown species, which was found in 2008 in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, was not a Neanderthal, as scientists first thought, but a previously unknown type of ancient human. A finger bone was found in Denisov’s cave. Through successive researches, Dr. Akey and his team discovered that the closest living relatives of the Denisovans are the modern Melanesians. These are nations that today inhabit New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands or Fiji. These peoples even carry 4 to 6% Denisovan genes, as well as some Neanderthal genes. This means that since the beginning of the human line, there has been admixture, meaning that populations split and merge again.
9 types of people once lived on Earth. But then suddenly they mysteriously disappeared, except for one
reading for 5 minutes
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Human DNA is the key
So all the research has finally proven that today’s people carry the genes of an ancient, unknown ancestor, left behind by hominin species intermingling perhaps a million years ago. It could have been Homo erectus, Neanderthals and Denisovans, and certainly other species. Thus, early humans mated with Neanderthals between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago.
Up to today, according to new research, perhaps as much as 20% of the Neanderthal genome has been preserved in our genes. The research then compared the genomes of two Neanderthals, one Denisovan, and two modern African individuals, revealing recombination events, and even recombination events within recombination events. Thus it was revealed that the species Homo sapiens probably mated with Neanderthals between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, and in several periods. The new results are just further evidence that ancient and modern human lineages intermingled quite often.
Resources:
www.ancientpages.com, www.livescience.com
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