Neandertal mother, Denisovan father—Newly-sequenced genome sheds light on interactions between ancient hominins

Up until 40,000 years ago, at least two groups of hominins inhabited Eurasia—Neandertals in the west and Denisovans in the east. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig (Germany) have sequenced the genome of an ancient hominin individual from Siberia, and discovered that she had a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father.