First Confirmed Denisovan Skull Piece Found | Hacker News Reader

First Confirmed Denisovan Skull Piece Found

sapiens.org

147 pointsanthrocurious18 comments

For those like me who had no idea - Denisovans diverged from the branch that became Modern humans 600-744,000 years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan

> Melanesians were found to have a mysterious third archaic Homo species along with their Denisovan (3–4%) and Neanderthal (2%) ancestors in a genetic admixture with their otherwise modern Homo sapiens sapiens genomes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesia

> People from Melanesia may carry genetic evidence of a previously unknown extinct hominid species

https://phys.org/news/2016-11-people-melanesia-genetic-evide...

Thank you, stranger.

lostlogin is the name. Seems to be a distant relative of mine...

Modern humans derive from Denisovans so the distinction seems rather minor.

Are you saying the divergence couldn't have been that great if there was some level of interbreeding, or are you saying something else? "Derive" seems like a strong word in this case, considering the low single-digit percentage of denisovan DNA in any modern humans.

> single-digit percentage of denisovan DNA in any modern humans

is likely a wrong description. We share around 90% of DNA with pigs, cucumber and what not (figures estimated, I'm not into Bio).

It's amazing and exciting that we know so little about a human lineage that contributed a measurable amount of DNA back to us hundreds of thousands of years after our lineages diverged.

How did they confirm such findings? I guess DNA can't survive for so long. Did they deduct this from shape?

With modern extraction techniques DNA is doable.

There is a really fascinating (IMHO) podcast about the use of modern DNA analysis and the insights into ancient populations on the After-On podcast with David Reich https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/034 Up until podcast, I didnt even know there was a branch called Denisovans. Although not generally a big interest of mine, I found it interesting enough to read Reich's book which was a fascinating detective story and a very new view onto ancient history.

+1 for the book! Just finished it a couple of weeks ago. And if you liked that, consider The Tangled Tree by David Quammen.

It's like four paragraphs in, did you even RTFA?

> DNA analysis proves that the piece is Denisovan, though it’s too old to date with radiocarbon techniques.

> Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Gentle reminder of this HN Guideline, which I find helpful for civil discourse. It's easy to miss something in the middle of an article.

Re: the OP's question, while the article does confirm it was found by DNA analysis, I also find it surprising that DNA can be extracted at 500k+ years. I'm curious if there are any experts on it that could chime in here on what modern limits are for that type of stuff.

It says confirmed in the title. It says confirmed in the APs post.

I'm finding it hard to believe AP simply "missed it" when they had the question in mind before they even read the thing.

> when they had the question in mind before they even read the thing.

I don't think you can assume that. I think a fair number of people could read the article and then afterward realize they don't know how it was confirmed.

Ok, I think you might be right there. I see you're point. Will try to be different. Thanks for bearing with me.

They absolutely cannot extract a full genome. Whatever they do, I didn't understand it the last time I read up on it.

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