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Not really. There is no evidence that this homo sp. has any living decendants. It has been known for a long time that homo spp. left Africa millions of years ag

Not really. There is no evidence that this homo sp. has any living decendants. It has been known for a long time that homo spp. left Africa millions of years ago. The only unexpected finding here is that this homo sp. got to an island that is surrounded by water. I have a feeling that this species is a Denosovian, but unless they can get some DNA out we won't know. We do know that the Denosovian knew how to travel over open ocean as they made it to Australia and PNG.

mkl 8y ago
> We do know that the Denosovian knew how to travel over open ocean as they made it to Australia and PNG. This is incorrect. We know Denisovans only from one cave in Siberia. From there we have DNA sequences, and from those we can tell Denisovans interbred with some homo sapiens, including people now in Australia and PNG (up to 6% of their DNA is Denisovan). There is no evidence that Denisovans themselves travelled that far.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Well Denosovian DNA is basically absent on the Asian side of the Wallace line and at a very high frequency on the Australian side. On top of this there is physical evidence of homo sp. occupation of Australia as far back as 120K years ago which is before modern humans can be found outside of Africa. There is one additional piece of evidence which is the modern Australian Aborignial and PNG population is descended from a founder population that appeared 15-30K years ago. Add all these up and the evidence is strongly in favour of the Denosovians being the first homo sp. that crossed the Wallace line.
  - YUMad 8y ago
    Not really, that founding population could have mated with Denisovan before crossing the Wallace line. Which is most likely what happened, IMO. Descendants of that population got outcompeted by later ooA migrations, other than small pockets such as Negritos, who also show high Neandertal DNA %.
    - YUMad 8y ago
      *high Denisovan % I meant.
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      I am pretty sure there are no populations with high Denisovan ancestry on the Asian side of the Wallace line. Do you have a reference which describes such a population?
      - YUMad 8y ago
        Philippine Negritos have high Denisovan %: https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/9/8/2013/3952725 https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/9/8/2013/3952725 Malaysian and Andamanese Negritos don't.
        danieltillett 8y ago
        The Philippines weren't ever connect to Asia via a land bridge and Huxley's modification of the Wallace line (Huxley Line) runs between the Philippines and Borneo [1]. This paper is very interesting though as it provides clues as to how the Denosovian spread through the Sahul. It adds even more support that the new homo sp. found in the OA are Denosovian. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line

mkl 8y ago

> We do know that the Denosovian knew how to travel over open ocean as they made it to Australia and PNG. This is incorrect. We know Denisovans only from one cave in Siberia. From there we have DNA sequences, and from those we can tell Denisovans interbred with some homo sapiens, including people now in Australia and PNG (up to 6% of their DNA is Denisovan). There is no evidence that Denisovans themselves travelled that far.

danieltillett 8y ago
Well Denosovian DNA is basically absent on the Asian side of the Wallace line and at a very high frequency on the Australian side. On top of this there is physical evidence of homo sp. occupation of Australia as far back as 120K years ago which is before modern humans can be found outside of Africa. There is one additional piece of evidence which is the modern Australian Aborignial and PNG population is descended from a founder population that appeared 15-30K years ago. Add all these up and the evidence is strongly in favour of the Denosovians being the first homo sp. that crossed the Wallace line.
- YUMad 8y ago
  Not really, that founding population could have mated with Denisovan before crossing the Wallace line. Which is most likely what happened, IMO. Descendants of that population got outcompeted by later ooA migrations, other than small pockets such as Negritos, who also show high Neandertal DNA %.
  - YUMad 8y ago
    *high Denisovan % I meant.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    I am pretty sure there are no populations with high Denisovan ancestry on the Asian side of the Wallace line. Do you have a reference which describes such a population?
    - YUMad 8y ago
      Philippine Negritos have high Denisovan %: https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/9/8/2013/3952725 https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/9/8/2013/3952725 Malaysian and Andamanese Negritos don't.
      - danieltillett 8y ago
        The Philippines weren't ever connect to Asia via a land bridge and Huxley's modification of the Wallace line (Huxley Line) runs between the Philippines and Borneo [1]. This paper is very interesting though as it provides clues as to how the Denosovian spread through the Sahul. It adds even more support that the new homo sp. found in the OA are Denosovian. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line