Ancient DNA from Siberia Fingers a Possible New Human Lineage
Evolutionary geneticists analyzing a sample of a 40,000-year-old human finger bone from a Siberian cave have apparently identified a new lineage of ancient human, the first time that this has been done using ancient DNA and not fossil bones. When an ancient-DNA expert gave his colleague a sample of...
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Published in | Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 327; no. 5973; pp. 1566 - 1567 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
26.03.2010
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Evolutionary geneticists analyzing a sample of a 40,000-year-old human finger bone from a Siberian cave have apparently identified a new lineage of ancient human, the first time that this has been done using ancient DNA and not fossil bones.
When an ancient-DNA expert gave his colleague a sample of a 40,000-year-old human finger bone from a Siberian cave, he had only one question: Was its mitochondrial DNA that of a Neandertal or a modern human? It was neither. The evolutionary geneticists have apparently identified a new lineage of ancient human, the first time that this has been done using ancient DNA and not fossil bones. |
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ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
DOI: | 10.1126/science.327.5973.1566-b |