Fossil finger bone yields genome of a previously unknown human relative
Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - 14:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl who belonged to a previously unknown group of human relatives who may have lived throughout much of Asia. Although the fossil evidence consists of just a bone fragment and one tooth, DNA extracted from the bone has yielded a genome sequence that leads to some startling conclusions about this extinct branch of the human family tree.