Klaryssa+H.


 * Klaryssa Hawkins **


 * Wiki post #1 **


 * April 2nd 2016 **

__**A new perspective on Human evolution **__

It was believed by many that Neanderthals were the only other hominid species to live alongside with Homo sapiens. In 2008, a small pinky bone in the Denisova cave, that belonged to what they discovered was a young girl, was found by a team of Russian archeologist. The DNA from this girl’s pinky bone was so well persevered because of the caves cool temperatures all year round; they were able to extract almost a full sequencing of the genome. The subject of this interests me because it is my dream job to one day be able to study things like this in labs.  They were able to find out that the bone was from around 41,000 years ago. It was only recent in 2010 that they were able to read the genetic code from an extinct human, and when they were going through process with this pinky bone the results were not what they expected. The results did not show up as a Neanderthal or an early modern human, it was a completely new branch of hominid species which they named Denisovan, after the Denisova cave the bone was found in. What’s so fascinating about thi s subject is that we are able to discover so much information just by the genomes from a population we can’t study with just many fossils. Further discoveries of teeth within the cave were made since then, giving more information on this “new relative”.

As more DNA analyses were made it was proven that 3%-5% of the DNA of aboriginals from the Philippines, people of New Guinea and indigenous populations of Australia showed Denisovan ancestry. Along with 4% of the majority of modern human DNA had shown Neanderthal ancestry. This would all mean that early modern humans interbred more frequently than scientist had believed, and to make it more interesting there’s still potentially another unknown specie left to find. 

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160302659/pinky-dna-points-to-clues-about-ancient-humans http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151116-denisovan-human-anthropology-ancient-dna/ http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125-missing-human-ancestor/shreeve-text http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/denisovans-neandertals-human-races/
 * __Further reading __**

media type="youtube" key="5OVRLKI0MK4" width="560" height="315" media type="youtube" key="0R-4OiQVVpc" width="560" height="315" media type="youtube" key="MjMoQDTIzTY" width="560" height="315" http://www.popsci.com/an-ancient-tooth-sheds-light-on-human-cousin-denisovans http://archaeology.about.com/od/hominidancestors/qt/Denisovans.htm http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101222-new-human-species-dna-nature-science-evolution-fossil-finger/ http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160302659/pinky-dna-points-to-clues-about-ancient-humans http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151116-denisovan-human-anthropology-ancient-dna/ http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125-missing-human-ancestor/shreeve-text http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/denisovans-neandertals-human-races/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327/full/nature09710.html
 * __Videos __**
 * __Sources __**