<div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0px 0px 1.75rem;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:16px;line-height:1.75;font-family:museo-sans,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(49,49,59)">"Denisovans are an elusive bunch, known mainly from ancient DNA samples and traces of that DNA that the ancient hominids shared when they interbred with <em style="font-family:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Homo sapiens</em>. They left their biggest genetic imprint on people who now live in Southeast Asian islands, nearby Papua New Guinea and Australia. Genetic evidence now shows that a Philippine Negrito ethnic group has inherited the most Denisovan ancestry of all. Indigenous people known as the Ayta Magbukon get around 5 percent of their DNA from Denisovans, a new study finds.<br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1.75rem;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:16px;line-height:1.75;font-family:museo-sans,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(49,49,59)">This finding fits an evolutionary scenario in which two or more Stone Age Denisovan populations independently reached various Southeast Asian islands, including the Philippines and a landmass that consisted of what’s now Papua New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania. Exact arrival dates are unknown, but <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-stone-tools-raise-tantalizing-questions-over-who-colonized-sulawesi" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-top-style:initial;border-right-style:initial;border-bottom-style:solid;border-left-style:initial;border-color:initial;box-sizing:border-box;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(23,108,171);text-decoration-line:none">nearly 200,000-year-old stone tools found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi</a> may have been made by Denisovans (<em style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;font-family:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">SN</em>: 1/13/16). <em style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;font-family:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">H. sapiens</em> groups that started arriving around 50,000 years ago or more then interbred with resident Denisovans.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1.75rem;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:16px;line-height:1.75;font-family:museo-sans,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(49,49,59)">Evolutionary geneticists Maximilian Larena and Mattias Jakobsson, both at Uppsala University in Sweden, and their team describe the new evidence August 12 in <em style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;font-family:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Current Biology</em>."</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1.75rem;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:16px;line-height:1.75;font-family:museo-sans,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(49,49,59)"><a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/indigenous-people-philippines-denisovan-dna-genetics">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/indigenous-people-philippines-denisovan-dna-genetics</a><br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1.75rem;padding:0px;border:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:16px;line-height:1.75;font-family:museo-sans,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(49,49,59)"><br></p></div>