Possible new human ancestor found in Siberia

[Pam]

Could this be the missing link:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N4VS20100324

[skunk]

Just read an article about this woman pam, very cool stuff.

Here's one from the bbc.

DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8583254.stm)

Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave.

The extinct "hominin" (human-like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.

An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans.

Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been published in Nature journal.

...

"This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly-understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia."

The discovery raises the intriguing possibility that three forms of human - Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and the species represented by X-woman - could have met each other and interacted in southern Siberia.

...

"Whoever carried this mitochondrial genome out of Africa about a million years ago is some new creature that has not been on our radar screens so far," said co-author Professor Svante Paabo, also from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The divergence date of one million years is too young for the Denisova hominin to have been a descendent of Homo erectus, which moved out of Africa into Asia some two million years ago.

And it is too old to be a descendent of Homo heidelbergensis, another ancient human thought to have originated around 650,000 years ago. However, for now, the researchers have steered away from describing the specimen as a new species.

Article continued at source.

[Pam]

Here is an interview with one of the German researchers. I find this kind of stuff amazing.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5391008,00.html

I just don't understand the dating: "So far, we can only say that this DNA - the DNA we've studied so far from this prehistoric man - has about 1 million years between it and the DNA of modern man. So that means that these two forms, modern man and prehistoric man, spent at least 1 million years developing in very different ways."

[skunk]

It means they have no idea how humans evolved.

[MissSilver]

It means they have no idea how humans involved.


Try and tell that to Cog...:rolleyes:


Great article BTW!

[skunk]

Lol typo, that should say evolved.