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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 physi
by 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 agoNot 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 agoI 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 agoPhilippine 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 agoThe 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