Denisovan ancestry and population history of early East Asians

• DOI: 10.1101/2020.06.03.131995
• Publication Date: 2020-06-04T04:24:30Z
• Authors: Diyendo Massilani; Laurits Skov; Mateja Hajdinjak; Byambaa Gunchinsuren; Damdinsuren Tseve...; Seonbok Yi; Jungeun Lee; Sarah Nagel; Birgit Nickel; Thibaut Devièse; Tom Higham; Matthias Meyer; Janet Kelso; Benjamin M. Peter; Svante Pääbo
• Keywords: [SDV.EE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment; 0301 basic medicine; Population; Skull; Hominidae; Mongolia; Evolution, Molecular; [SDV.EE] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment; 03 medical and health sciences; Asian People; Animals; Humans; Female; DNA, Ancient

AbstractWe present analyses of the genome of a ~34,000-year-old hominin skull cap discovered in the Salkhit Valley in North East Mongolia. We show that this individual was a female member of a modern human population that, following the split between East and West Eurasians, experienced substantial gene flow from West Eurasians. Both she and a 40,000-year-old individual from Tianyuan outside Beijing carried genomic segments of Denisovan ancestry. These segments derive from the same Denisovan admixture event(s) that contributed to present-day mainland Asians but are distinct from the Denisovan DNA segments in present-day Papuans and Aboriginal Australians.