Scientists Say A Mystery Species Bred with Ancient Humans in Distant Past

A new study of the genomes of Australasians has revealed sections of DNA that do not match any known hominin species. The dramatic findings mean that a mystery species bred with ancient humans in the distant past and that our family tree is much more complex than previously believed.

New Scientist reports that the unknown species bred with early human ancestors when they migrated from Africa to Australasia.  

The surprising finding, published in the journal Nature Genetics, was made by Jaume Bertranpetit at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain and his colleagues, who examined the genomes of living Indigenous Australians, Papuans, people from the Andaman Islands near India, and from mainland India.  The results revealed sections of DNA that did not match any previously identified hominin species.

“These DNA sequences are not present in the genomes of living Europeans or east Asians,” reports New Scientist, “suggesting that the ancestors of these people met and bred with a mystery hominin in south Asia or the Pacific region, who left their genetic legacy in the area’s present-day populations.”

One theory is that the mystery species was Homo erectus, which was present in Asia between about 1.8 million and 33,000 years ago. However, there is no DNA from Homo erectus with which to compare to the samples from current Australasian populations.