HEALTH – Like Neanderthal in Europe, an extinct species would have mixed with “Homo sapiens” in Africa. A discovery that confirms a widespread hypothesis, the subject of little work.
Ghostbusters don’t just exist in fantasy literature. Two geneticists from the University of Los Angeles in California (UCLA) have just discovered in the DNA of contemporary populations, the reminiscences of a human species that disappeared almost 40,000 years ago (Sciences Advances February 12).
At that time, the planet was still populated by several groups of hominins, the ancestors of men and their close cousins. Different “humanities”, some of which are known by their archaeological remains. This is the case of the Neanderthal man for example, who populated Europe before the arrival of our ancestors “Homo sapiens”. Some of these groups could still be close enough to reproduce together. Exchanges which, tens of thousands of years later, have left traces in our genomes.
Yes [les scientifiques] manage to isolate some unknown genetic sequences, it is that an unlisted human group may have crossed the path of our ancestors
To find them, we must dive into our DNA. “We compare the DNA of fossils with that of modern populations, explains Frédéric Austerlitz,
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