Ancient DNA from the Sima de los Huesos
ADN antiguo de la Sima de los Huesos
- Date
- 2013-2016 · confidence high
- Place
- Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain
- Credited to
- Matthias Meyer, Svante Pääbo and the Atapuerca team (Arsuaga, Bermúdez de Castro, Carbonell)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Mitochondrial DNA from a femur of the Sima de los Huesos, about 400,000 years old, was then the oldest human DNA ever sequenced (2013-2014). In 2016 nuclear DNA from several individuals placed them on the Neanderthal lineage, which implies that the split between sapiens and the Neanderthal-Denisovan line is older than 430,000 years.
The mitochondrial DNA (2013-2014) suggested kinship with the Denisovans and was reinterpreted in 2016 with nuclear DNA. When sequenced it was the oldest hominin DNA; the record for ancient DNA from other groups has since been surpassed.
What it led to
- revision of the evolutionary tree of Neanderthals and Denisovans
- ancient DNA of Middle Pleistocene hominins
- a split between sapiens and the Neanderthal-Denisovan line older than 430,000 years