The ancient root of people live in West Africa appear to have interbred with a mysterious “ ghost ” hominin – another missing character in the level of humans .
New research has suggested that some population living in West Africa today have traces of an archaic hominin species laying within their DNA , much like howNeanderthal DNAcan still be found in many populations of non - African parentage andDenisovan DNAlives on in hoi polloi of Asiatic heritage . However , unlike Neanderthals and Denisovans , no physical remain of this ancient hominin have ever been found by New science .
report in the journalScience Advancestoday , researchers from the University of California , Los Angeles ' School of Medicine looked to find segments of archaic ancestry within the genomes of over 400 people from four West African populations from the1,000 Genomes Project , including the Yoruba and Mende populations .
Using a computer - modeling proficiency , they found that between 2 and 19 percent of their genetic ancestry was derived from an unaccounted - for root , make the big interrogative : " who " was this ?
The research worker argue the best bet is that the genes of an unknown hominin entered the gene puddle through introgression , the flow of genes that appears when members of two populations mate and the resulting hybrid individuals then breed with member of the parent universe . It ’s perfectly feasible that the hominin in doubtfulness could even be a whole newfangled species of other man , say the researchers , whose ancestors most likely separate off from the human family tree before the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans .
We know humans widely reproduce with both Neanderthals and Denisovans , and a small but significant amount of their DNA can still be found in most European and East Asiatic populations , severally . moreover , a study released last month show for the first clip that around 0.3 per centum of Africans ’ genomescontain Neanderthal filiation .
However , the unexplainable DNA found in the people currently live in West Africa does not match up with Neanderthals nor Denisovans . regard these two hominins did n’t even wittingly pace foot in Africa , that ’s not surprising , although it does persist to be date “ who ” this species is .
Perhaps surprisingly , other missing “ ghost ” hominins have been found before in the geneticsof forward-looking - day humankind . Whole - genome analysisof deoxyribonucleic acid taken from mass live on the Andaman Islands in Southeast Asia also found a sizable number of genes that did n’t seem to be derived from Neanderthals , Denisovans , orHomo sapiens(us ) .
