A fossil site in Spain has turn up some astonishing final result : mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid fromhominins that lived 400,000 years ago . The DNA suggests they were related to the Denisovans ; an out hominin group that was latterly show up to have crossbreed with Neanderthals and modern humans . The results of the subject were write this week inNaturefrom lead writer Matthias Meyer from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology .
The Sima de los Huesos is a cave dodo land site in Spain that has been studied and excavated over the last 20 years . So far nearly 30 skeletal system have been recovered from the site , all of which are at least 300,000 years old . They are tentatively classified as Homo heidelbergensis , though there are distinct physiological similarity to Neanderthals . Popularly , they are being referred to as the Sima hominins . Thanks to advances in sequencing technology , the researchers were able to find a nigh - complete mitochondrial genome to learn more about our ancient relatives .
The recovered DNA came from a 400,000 class onetime femur recovered by a squad of Spanish scientists . Meyer ’s team of German geneticist used special techniques to restore the damaged mtDNA . The resulting chronological succession give the researcher a few surprisal as it revealed ancient secrets about hominin evolution . This is one of the former genome ever recovered ; which is doubly telling since these bones were not preserved through permafrost .
The finger cymbals recovered from Sima look moderately alike to Neanderthals , but their mtDNA shows they are more closely related to Denisovans . This raises questions about the evolutionary relationships between these groups . The Sima rest were from a universe that may have been ancestral to Neanderthals and Denisovans or there could have been a yet - unknown group that caused theshared genetic information .
The winner of finding the code for such one-time mtDNA opens the door for genome of other ancient fossils to be sequence . Future research will also attempt to obtain mtDNA from other mortal at the Sima site , as well as stress to recover nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid which reveal many secrets of the lives of this extinct human universe .
