Thegenetic sequencing of mitochondrial DNA obtained from the bone of a fingerfound in Denisova Cave in Siberia has allowed scientists to identify a hitherto unknown type of hominid thatlived in the mountains of Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.
The analysis, published in the journalNature, indicates that this DNA corresponds to a migration from Africa of which nothing was known until now and which is different from those carried out from that continent by the ancestors of Neanderthal man and modern humans.
According to Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues, the finger bone corresponds to a child of about six years of age whoshared ancestry with Neanderthals and modern humans about a million years ago. That is, it is exactly twice as old as the most recent known common ancestor.
Woman-X
Their genetic material did not resemble that of the first modern man or Neanderthal, but it was something that scientists had not seen before. “It was a sequence similar in a way to modern humans and at the same time different,” explains Krause. Scientists do not know if the hominid was male or female , although they have given it the name X-woman (X-woman) because the discovery was based on DNA from mitochondria , which, unlike DNA from the nucleus of the cell , is only inherited through the mother .
Another mystery lies in the fact that much more modern stone and bone artifacts and tools were also found at the site of Siberia, including a bracelet and other ornaments.
According to the scientists, it is time to re- examine the theories about migration from Africa . Rather than humans leaving that continent in two main waves, the migrations were perhaps a continuous and oscillating process.
