The Denisova man is still in us

Researchers show traces of the Neanderthal relatives in the genome
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have found traces of Denisova primitive man in the human genome. This is a relative of the Neanderthal man, who probably lived about 40,000 years ago in the Central Asian Altai Mountains. As a result, the researchers hope to gain new insights into the understanding of human evolution.
Urmensch lived in Asia until 40,000 years ago
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have discovered that even today there are apparently traces of the so-called "Denisova man" in the genetic material of humans. These are a population of the genus "Homo", which is closely related to the Neanderthals. While the Neanderthals were located primarily in Europe and Western Asia, Denisova people were suspected to have traveled through East Asia and still lived in the Central Asian Altai Mountains until about 40,000 years ago.

Traces of primitive man still detectable. Image: procy_ab - fotolia

The Denisova primitive man has only been known for a few years, in 2008 Russian archaeologists had found a finger bone and teeth in a cave in southern Siberia.

However, according to Svante Pääbo's team, the Denisova man left far fewer marks in the genome of modern humans than the Neanderthals. According to the scientists, the genome of living humans outside of Africa is about two percent of the Neanderthals, while a significant descent of Denisova humans with a proportion between 1.9 and 3.4 percent could only be detected in people from Papua New Guinea in the journal "Science".

Neanderthal genes have a positive effect on the immune system
A few years ago, scientists had shown that people living in Europe and Asia today carry one to four percent of the Neanderthal genome. Just recently, researchers from Leipzig, as well as colleagues from the French research institute CNRS and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, had tackled the question of the effects of these traces on our health and came to interesting results. Thus, the blends would bring health benefits to some of today's descendants, as Neanderthal genes have a positive effect on the immune system and increase protection against infectious diseases. At the same time, the inherited DNA components could possibly also promote the development of allergies. (No)