DENISOVA 11

Aug. 24, 2018

DNA analysis of Denisova 11 has provided the first direct evidence of inter-species child. She was the child of two now-extinct hominins, a Neanderthal and a Denisovan.

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Neanderthals and Denisovans are extinct groups of hominins that separated from each other more than 390,000 years ago.
These two groups inhabited Eurasia — Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in the east — until they were replaced by modern humans around 40,000 years ago.
Now, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has sequenced the genome of Denisova 11, a 50,000-year-old individual from Denisova Cave in Siberia, and discovered that she had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.
The Denisova 11 bone fragment was excavated in 2012 from the Denisova Cave. The fragment is part of a long bone, and it is estimated that she was at least 13 years old when she died.