DNA reveals first inter-species child ’s mother was a , but her father a , a distinct species of primitive

Agence France-Presse mania, also bolsters this no- Paris tion. But the most compell- Denny was an inter-species ing evidence that love child. inter-species hanky-panky in Her mother was a Nean- Late Pleistocene Eurasia may derthal, but her father was not have been that rare lies Denisovan, a distinct species in the genes of contempor- of primitive human that also ary . roamed the Eurasian conti- About 2% of DNA in non- nent 50,000 years ago, Africans across the globe to- scientists reported on Wed- day originate with Neander- nesday in the journal thals, earlier studies have . shown. Nicknamed by Oxford Un- Denisovan remnants are iversity scientists, Denisova A saga of evolution: A bone fragment of Denisova 11 found in 2012 at in the also widespread, though less 11 — her official name — was of ; right, researchers excavating a cave for Denisovan fossils. * AFP evenly. at least 13 when she died, for “We find traces of Deniso- reasons unknown. bone fragment unearthed in or and Max Planck Institute Or not. “The very fact that van DNA — less than 1% — 2012 by Russian archeolo- professor Svante Paabo, who we found this individual of everywhere in Asia and First direct link gists at the Denisova Cave in identified the firstDenisovan mixed Neanderthal and De- among native Americans,” “There was earlier evidence the Altai Mountains of a decade ago at the same nisovan origins suggests that said Mr. Paabo. of interbreeding between Siberia. site. they interbred much more “Aboriginal Australians different hominin, or early Analysis of the bone’s often than we thought,” said and people in Papua New human, groups,” said lead DNA left no doubt: the chro- Early humans Ms. Slon. Guinea have about 5%.” author , a re- mosomes were a 50-50 mix Worldwide, fewer than two Mr. Paabo agreed: “They Taken together, these searcher at the Max Planck of Neanderthal and Deniso- dozen early human must have quite commonly facts support a novel answer Institute for Evolutionary van, two distinct species of from before 40,000 years had kids together, otherwise to the hotly debated ques- Anthropology. “But this is early humans that split apart ago — Neanderthal, Deniso- we wouldn’t have been this tion of why — the first time that we have between 4,00,000 to van, Homo sapiens — have lucky.” which had successfully found a direct, first-genera- 5,00,000 years ago. been sequenced, and the A 40,000 year-old Homo spread across parts of west- tion offspring,” she said. “I initially thought that chances of stumbling on a sapiens with a Neanderthal ern and central Europe — dis- Denny’s surprising pedi- they must have screwed up half-and-half hybrid seemed ancestor a few generations appeared some 40,000 gree was unlocked from a in the lab,” said senior auth- vanishingly small. back, recently found in Ro- years ago.