by RICKI LEWIS
As a textbook author, I often have to evaluate new research and predict whether it will stand the test of time. I’m a skeptic. But when Svante Pääbo, director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and his colleagues introduced a new member of the human family in 2010 based on a preliminary genome sequence from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, with few other clues, I included her in my book. She was the first discovered Denisovan (pronounced “Denise-o-van”).
Today, thanks to new technology that unravels and amplifies fragmented ancient DNA, the researchers report in Science a much more complete view of the finger lady’s genome (thanks to two molars). “We’ve determined the genome sequence from this little finger bone to a quality like what we’d determine for a person today. Every position in the genome has been sequenced on average 30 times over,” said Dr. Pääbo at a news teleconference. And in her genome, the researchers say, lie clues to how we came to be the only people on the planet.
Scientific American for more