Ancient DNA from Neanderthal fossils in southern Siberia reveals a small community with close family ties – including a father and his teenage daughter.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our Homo sapiens ancestors shared the landscape with multiple other hominins.
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Ancient DNA helps reveal the tangled branches of the human family tree. Not only did our ancestors live alongside other human species, they mated with them, too.
Researchers need to be careful not to contaminate ancient samples with their own DNA.
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Thousands of ancient genomes have been sequenced to date. A Nobel Prize highlights tremendous opportunities for aDNA, as well as challenges related to rapid growth, equity and misinformation.
Svante Pääbo has won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for 2022.
EPA-EFE/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE
The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for 2022 has been awarded to Svante Pääbo, whose discoveries have been pivotal to the way we understand our evolutionary history.
Neanderthal adult male, based on 40,000 year-old remains found at Spy in Belgium.
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The mysterious Denisovans left DNA traces in populations across Southeast Asia and Australasia, but until now no physical signs of their presence outside Eurasia had been found.
The Grotte Mandrin rock shelter saw repeated use by Neanderthals and modern humans over millennia.
Ludovic Slimak
Stone artifacts and a fossil tooth point to Homo sapiens living at Grotte Mandrin 54,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals were still living in Europe.
Would we see Neanderthals (right) as human if they were around today?
wikipedia
The genus Paranthropus stands out in our human family tree because of their massive back teeth, but new techniques suggest we should throw out the hypothesis they mainly ate hard seeds and nuts.
What our relative may have looked like.
CREDIT Chuang Zhao
Our research has also uncovered major long-term changes in ancient animal populations at Denisova Cave, and has provided the first direct evidence of Homo sapiens having lived there.
Prehistoric hand paintings at the Cave of Hands in Argentina, thought to be over 10,000 years old.
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