First ever reconstruction of a Denisovan shows what these little-understood ancient human ancestors would have looked like

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Up until now, palaeontologists have faced a major problem when it comes to working out what these ancient hominids would have looked like. Now, using DNA methylation, scientists have been able to bring them back to life.

Researchers have been able to bring the now-extinct cousins of Homo sapiens, the Denisovans, back to life —offering us the first glimpse at what these little-understood hominids would have looked like tens of thousands of years after they went extinct.

"In many ways, Denisovans resembled Neanderthals, but in some traits, they resembled us, and in others they were unique." This image shows a portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. Credit: Maayan Harel The researchers tested the strength of their technique by looking at two primate species that are already known, the Neanderthal and the Chimpanzee. The efficiency of the prediction when it came to reconstructing traits separating modern humans and Neanderthals was 83 percent, with an 88 percent success rate at predicting their direction of change.

"Studying Denisovan anatomy can teach us about human adaptation, evolutionary constraints, development, gene-environment interactions, and disease dynamics," said Carmel."At a more general level, this work is a step towards being able to infer an individual's anatomy based on their DNA,"he added.

 

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