Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors interbred with a distantly related hominin

X, Y, N, D, and S label Africa, Europe, Neanderthal,
Denisovan, and superarchaic pop.

In the past few years since the Denisovan reference genome was published, numerous studies have been conducted on their relationship to modern humans and Neanderthals. Rogers et al., 2020 presents evidence of interbreeding between the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans, who interbred with an older Eurasian “superarchaic” population. This population is thought to have separated from other humans over 2 million years ago and could have been as large as 20 to 50 thousand individuals. Rogers et al. argue that the Neanderthal and archaic population had separated over 1.2 million years prior to the interbreeding event. They also suggest that there were two divided subpopulations within the larger archaic population, who each independently interbred with either 1) Neanderthals or 2) Denisovans.

Joshua Porter - 02/24/2020 Potluck

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/8/eaay5483.abstract