Scientists Just Sequenced DNA From A 400,000-Year-Old Early Human

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Wow. 

In Genes class, we just (a couple of weeks ago) heard that the oldest DNA that has been successfully sequenced is from a (frozen) horse that died 700,000 years ago.

Just now, I learn Scientists Just Sequenced DNA From A 400,000-Year-Old Early Human.  This is much older than any DNA previously sequenced from proto-human remains.....

You can see what  I meant, a couple of days ago, about the data changing practically every day!  As the science allows the technology to improve, we are capable of learning more and more, from older and older bones............

Amazing.


Also interesting is that these 400,000-yr-old bones, found in Spain, are apparently very closely related to Denisovans, previously only known from a few pieces of bone -- in Siberia!!!  It's possible that those people in Spain actually *are* Denisovans, which would give us the first ability to see what they may have looked like.


I'll say again that given how unlikely it is that anything that has lived will become a fossil, and then how unlikely it is that the fossil will be preserved for long periods of time, and then how unlikely it is that we will find that fossil, I'm boggled at how much we know (and are learning, every day) about what happened in the distant past.  !!!

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