Neanderthal genome and Denisovans
Genoma neandertal y descubrimiento de los denisovanos
- Date
- 2010 · confidence high
- Place
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Credited to
- Svante Pääbo and team
- People
- 👤 Svante Pääbo1955–
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Sequencing of the Neanderthal genome from 40,000-year-old bones, revealing 1-4% Neanderthal DNA in non-African humans, and the discovery, from a finger bone found in Siberia, of a new human population, the Denisovans.
Nobel Prize 2022.
What it led to
- palaeogenomics as a discipline
- acceptance of hybridisation between human lineages
- archaic genes in adaptation (Tibetan altitude, immunity)
- rewriting of human settlement history
Built on
Made possible
- Ancient DNA from the Sima de los Huesos2013-2016
- ancient DNA techniques and clean rooms