Denny (Denisova 11) is an ~90,000-year-old fossil specimen belonging to a ~13-year-old Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid girl. To date, she is the only first-generation hybrid hominin ever discovered. Denny’s remains consist of a single fossilized fragment of a long bone discovered among over 2,000 visually unidentifiable fragments excavated at the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains, Russia in 2012.
A team of researchers at Oxford University led by Tom Higham used a method of collagen peptide mass fingerprinting, called Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis to identify the fragment as belonging to an archaic human with Neanderthal ancestry.
Genomic sequencing and analysis led by paleo-geneticists Viviane Slon and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology revealed that Denny was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Additionally, her genome suggests that her father also carried a small degree of Neanderthal ancestry from 300 to 600 generations prior to his lifetime.
These surprising genomic data has caused some paleontologists to speculate that interspecies mating between Denisovans and Neanderthals could have occurred with some frequency during several periods of contact over many thousands of years.[3] Additionally, these findings lend support to the hypothesis that similar patterns of admixture, or interbreeding between archaic and modern humans, may have resulted in the partial absorption of Denisovans and Neanderthals into modern human populations.
Overview
Dating analyses in 2016 determined that Denny (Denisova 11) died about 90,000 years ago, and the bone’s cortical thickness indicates an age at death of at least 13 years. An analysis of the whole genome sequence (total mitochondrial and nuclear DNA) indicates she was female, with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. While previous analyses of other ancient genomes concluded that Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern humans interbred during the ice age in Europe and Asia, this find is the most direct evidence yet that various ancient hominins mated with each other and had offspring.
Previous analyses from other fossils found in this Siberian cave have shown that modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans inhabited this site at various times, and that all three human species interbred with each other. The genes of both archaic human species are present in many people today, which suggests that when these groups met, gene flow occurred. It is not evident if the mating was consensual or if Denny was fertile. The discovery of Denisova 11 may support the notion that Neanderthals and Denisovans may not have undergone direct extinction but were partly assimilated into modern human populations.
Neanderthals and modern humans interbred over 40,000 years ago, exchanging genetic material. Some Neanderthal genes are responsible for certain traits in modern humans, including the immune system, metabolic systems, and developmental systems. For example, 66% of East Asians have a Neanderthal variant of the POUF23L gene, and 70% of Europeans have an introgressed allele of BNC2. Neanderthal variants can also affect the risk of developing diseases like lupus, Crohn’s disease, and type 2 diabetes.
The percentage of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans varies by region and can range from 0% to 4%:
African populations: Have 0% or close to 0% Neanderthal DNA
Eurasia: Has an average of 2% Neanderthal DNA, but can be as high as 4% in East Asia
Europeans and Asians: Have about 1–2% Neanderthal DNA
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