DNA Offers Sharp Image of Ancient Humans

DNA Offers Sharp Image of Ancient Humans

Scientists have produced a digital image of a genome tens of thousands of years old with the resolution of a typical living person’s, enabling them to describe the life and history of the ancient humans in great detail, they reported in Science magazine.

Led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the scientists have created the highest quality genome sequence of ancient humans yet. Therefore, the Denisovans — as the group has been called, after the Siberian cave harboring its fossils: a finger bone and two teeth — are much better known genetically than Neanderthals, although there are hundreds of specimens from them.