Even older mtDNA

[sfs]

While the ridiculous argument about Neandertal mitochondrial DNA has been going on here, Svante Pääbo and company have been doing real science, sequencing the mtDNA from a 400,000 year old Homo bone from Spain:
BBC story.
Journal article

The results are pretty confusing, since the DNA is clearly more closely related to Denisovans than to Neandertals, even though southwest Spain was Neandertal country, and the bone probably predates the split between Neandertals and Denisovans. Human history just got more complicated.

 

[Strathos]

Something unexpected in paleontology? Obviously we have to throw out all of prehistory before 4000 BC now!

(Just anticipating some creationist arguments)

 

[Michael]

While the ridiculous argument about Neandertal mitochondrial DNA has been going on here, Svante Pääbo and company have been doing real science, sequencing the mtDNA from a 400,000 year old Homo bone from Spain:
BBC story.
Journal article

The results are pretty confusing, since the DNA is clearly more closely related to Denisovans than to Neandertals, even though southwest Spain was Neandertal country, and the bone probably predates the split between Neandertals and Denisovans. Human history just got more complicated.

It's amazing (and fabulous) that they could extract DNA from a sample that old.

 

[USincognito]

This map (in light of this analysis) makes me wonder if there might have been Denisovan populations in central and western Europe, but we haven't discovered any of their sites yet.