Denny (hybrid hominin)

Denny (Denisova 11) is an about 90,000-year-old fossil specimen belonging to a about 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 have 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. 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

In 2016, scientists found that Denny (Denisova 11), a young girl who lived about 90,000 years ago, was a mix of two ancient human-like groups. Her mother was a Neanderthal and her father was a Denisovan. This discovery, made from a small piece of bone found in a cave in Russia, is the first clear proof that these ancient groups had children together.

This finding adds to what we know about how different ancient humans interacted. We now know that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans all lived in the same places at different times and had children together. Their genes can still be found in many people today. This helps us understand how these groups may have mixed together instead of simply dying out.

Discovery

The fossil known as Denny was found in 2012 in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, Russia. The fossil is a small piece of bone, about 2 cm long, discovered among many other bone fragments. Scientists did not know what the bone came from at first.

Later, researchers used new scientific methods to study the bone. They found that it belonged to an ancient human. Further testing showed that this individual had a mix of ancestry from two different ancient human groups, Neanderthals and Denisovans. This discovery was important because it provided the first direct evidence that these ancient groups had children together.

DNA analysis

Scientists studied a small bone fragment called DC1227, also known as Denisova 11, which may have come from an arm or leg. They found that this bone belonged to a girl who was a mix of Neanderthal and Denisovan — two ancient human relatives. This made her the first known hybrid of these two groups.

Further tests showed that her father had a bit of Neanderthal DNA in his genes, and her mother was closely related to Neanderthals from Western Europe, far away from where she lived. This suggests that Neanderthals traveled from Western Europe to Central Eurasia and met Denisovans many times over thousands of years.

Main article: Denisova Cave

Context and implications

Further information: Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans

Scientists have long believed that different kinds of ancient humans mixed together. This idea became stronger when we learned that modern humans carry DNA from Neanderthals and Denisovans. For example, many people today have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, and some people from Melanesian regions have even more Denisovan DNA.

The discovery of Denny shows that some ancient humans had parents from two different species. This finding helps us understand that human evolution was not a simple story with one line, but a more complex web of connections between different groups of humans over time.