Oldest Human DNA Contains Clues To Mysterious Species

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 4, 2013 @03:01PM from the family-tree dept.

sciencehabit writes "Analysis of the oldest known genetic material ever to be recovered from an early human reveals an unexpected chapter in the story of human evolution. Researchers extracted mitochondrial DNA from the femur of a 400,000-year-old hominin found in the Sima de los Huesos ('pit of bones'), an underground cave in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain. Because the early hominins looked a little like Neanderthals, researchers expected their mitochondrial DNA to share a common ancestor. However, mitochondrial DNA from the Spanish hominin was found to share a common ancestor with an enigmatic eastern Eurasian sister group to the Neanderthals, the Denisovans."

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Re:underground cave... by M.+Baranczak · 2013-12-04 17:11 · Score: 3, Funny

Nick Cave. Does he still count as "underground"?
Re:science writer knows nothing of science by wonkey_monkey · 2013-12-04 20:20 · Score: 3, Funny

So what exactly is the "clues" that have been gained?
are
Sorry.
So what exactly is the "clues" that are been gained?

--
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:Hominin? by Nerdfest · 2013-12-04 23:32 · Score: 4, Funny

... because hominem is a homonym of hominim.