Interesting theory Matt! As a former Anthropology student I find myself fascinated by the evidence of interbreeding between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans. Interbreeding with Neanderthals was a hotly debated subject for a while but DNA analysis has provided some confirmation (though the debate still goes on whether they were a separate species or not), and has opened a whole new can of worms by providing evidence that homo sapiens interbred with ANOTHER group of previously unknown hominids, the Denisovans.
What's really interesting about the Denisovans is that the only physical evidence we have of them is a single fossilized tooth, which is larger than modern human or even Neanderthal teeth. We can tell from their DNA that they are more closely related to Neanderthals than to us, splitting off from the same parent population around 350,000 - 400,000 years ago which in turn split off from the homo sapiens population around 600,000 years ago. There's also evidence that the Denisovans interbred with yet another as of yet unknown hominid population after their split from the Neanderthal parent population.
The breakdown ends up being that all modern humans outside of Africa have 1.5-2.1% Neanderthal DNA, Asian and Native American populations have around 0.2% Denisovan DNA while populations from Oceania have around 3-6% Denisovan DNA with the highest concentrations in Australian Aboriginals, Papua New Guineans and Pacific Islanders.
An interesting discovery is that while the amount of interbreeding between Denisovans and Homo Sapiens seems to have been relatively rare on mainland Asia (compared to the Pacific Islands) the gene that allows Tibetans to thrive at high altitudes seems to have come from the Denisovan genome: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...e-science/
I think your theory is an interesting one Matt. The Denisovan fossil tooth found in Siberia date to around 40,000 years ago, which is close to the dates mentioned by Ra, and it does seem that the concentrations of interbreeding occurred in the right geographical area. Also maybe the reason we've found no remains other than that one tooth is due to cataclysm which washed Mu away.Who knows right?
What's really interesting about the Denisovans is that the only physical evidence we have of them is a single fossilized tooth, which is larger than modern human or even Neanderthal teeth. We can tell from their DNA that they are more closely related to Neanderthals than to us, splitting off from the same parent population around 350,000 - 400,000 years ago which in turn split off from the homo sapiens population around 600,000 years ago. There's also evidence that the Denisovans interbred with yet another as of yet unknown hominid population after their split from the Neanderthal parent population.
The breakdown ends up being that all modern humans outside of Africa have 1.5-2.1% Neanderthal DNA, Asian and Native American populations have around 0.2% Denisovan DNA while populations from Oceania have around 3-6% Denisovan DNA with the highest concentrations in Australian Aboriginals, Papua New Guineans and Pacific Islanders.
An interesting discovery is that while the amount of interbreeding between Denisovans and Homo Sapiens seems to have been relatively rare on mainland Asia (compared to the Pacific Islands) the gene that allows Tibetans to thrive at high altitudes seems to have come from the Denisovan genome: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...e-science/
I think your theory is an interesting one Matt. The Denisovan fossil tooth found in Siberia date to around 40,000 years ago, which is close to the dates mentioned by Ra, and it does seem that the concentrations of interbreeding occurred in the right geographical area. Also maybe the reason we've found no remains other than that one tooth is due to cataclysm which washed Mu away.Who knows right?
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