30,000 year old DNA from Siberia has been sequenced

[homestyle]

Here is a link to an interesting story I read this morning in the newspaper. I know, the newspaper is so Archaic!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/sc...3ancestor.html

[rokdok]

Denisovans.That's what they are calling these people, and they seem to be more closely related to Neanderthals than Homo sapiens, yet, they interbred with sapiens, as evidenced by 4-6% of Melanesians sharing some of their DNA.Apparently, they are derived from a previously unknown migration out of Africa prior to both Neanders and modern humans.They have archaic tooth morphology, and are associated with Mousterian and Levallois tools, as well as a polished , high-speed drilled chlorite bracelet,an artifact up to now only associated with Homo sapiens remains of the 30-50,000 year B.C. time period.It is now espoused that these hominids , which the professionals say are distinct from both Neander's and sapiens, may have been widespread in Eastern Asia and lived alongside both other species.Denisova cave is in the Altai region of Russia, the same site of the later migration of the ancestors of the major native American lineages, according to geneticists.If that is the case, and these Denisovans had the capabilities of modern humans but the toolkit of the Neanderthals, what kept them from migrating to the Americas at a much earlier date?If the only remains of this new species in the Old world , where they apparently resided for millenia, is a pinkie finger and 2 teeth, what evidence would we expect to find in the Americas if they were here for a much shorter period of time? Only their tools?Levallois-based lithics? Hell, we only have a couple of possible Clovis skeletal remains, and they are only 13,000 years old, what would be left of a founding population 30-50 thousand years old here?Very interesting development, indeed.

[Rick doninger]

Maybe their points looked a little like these, who knows? Ol' neander wandered and philandered much farther and for much longer than previously believed apparrently. Bordes actually typed seven different types of levallois points......rick d.

[Wildhorse]

Thank you Homestyle. A very interesting article. Something to think about on a cold and snowy day.

[OhRockhead]

It sure is a long stretch though. 50,000 to 400,000 yrs. I can probably go along with the 30k-50k but I think they're reaching. Very good article though. I guess maybe I should do a little more research before stating an opinion....LOL Just a dumb hillbilly.