Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture

Anatomically modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and with a related archaic population known as Denisovans. Genomes of several Neanderthals and one Denisovan have been sequenced, and these reference genomes have been used to detect introgressed genetic material in present-day human genomes. Segments of introgression also can be detected without use of reference genomes, and doing so can be advantageous for finding introgressed segments that are less closely related to the sequenced archaic genomes. We apply a new reference-free method for detecting archaic introgression to 5,639 whole-genome sequences from Eurasia and Oceania. We find Denisovan ancestry in populations from East and South Asia and Papuans. Denisovan ancestry comprises two components with differing similarity to the sequenced Altai Denisovan individual. This indicates that at least two distinct instances of Denisovan admixture into modern humans occurred, involving Denisovan populations that had different levels of relatedness to the sequenced Altai Denisovan.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29551270
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30175-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867418301752%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Outstanding questions in the study of archaic hominin admixture

The complete sequencing of archaic and modern human genomes has revolutionized the study of human history and evolution. The application of paleogenomics has answered questions that were beyond the scope of archaeology alone—definitively proving admixture between archaic and modern humans. Despite the remarkable progress made in the study of archaic–modern human admixture, many outstanding questions remain. Here, we review some of these questions, which include how frequent archaic–modern human admixture was in history, to what degree drift and selection are responsible for the loss and retention of introgressed sequences in modern human genomes, and how surviving archaic sequences affect human phenotypes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5978786/

There was “minimal gene flow” between archaic Europeans and Asians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/science/20adapt.html

NYT: “White? Black? A Murky Distinction Grows Still Murkier”
http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-white-black-a-murky-distinction-grows-still-murkier/

96-97% of whites have no African ancestry.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322125406/https://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/02/how_mixed_are_african_americans.3.html

Modeling the 3D Geometry of the Cortical Surface with Genetic Ancestry
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(15)00671-5