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[…] researchers also found significant fragments of genetic material from another archaic species of human, Denisovans, in the DNA of the Icelanders, and this was something of a surprise. Up to now, Denisovan genes have primarily been found in Australian Aborigines, East Asians and people in Papua New Guinea. So how did these genes end up in Islanders’ DNA? And when?

Based on the distribution of genes and mutations, the researchers came up with two possible explanations.

Either Neanderthals had children with Denisovans before they met the Homo Sapiens. This would mean that the Neanderthals with whom Homo Sapiens had children were already hybrids, who transferred both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes to the children.

“Up to now, we believed that the Neanderthals modern people have had children with were “pure” Neanderthals. It’s true that researchers have found the remnants of a hybrid between Denisovans and Neanderthals in a cave in East Asia, but we have not known whether there were more of these hybrids and whether, thousands of years later, they had children with modern humans,” explains Professor Mikkel Heide Schierup from BiRC.

Or Homo Sapiens met Denisovans long before they met Neanderthals. So far, it has been thought that modern humans met Neanderthals and had children with them first, and not until tens of thousands of years later did they have children with Denisovans.

“Both explanations are equally likely, and both explanations will be scientific news,” says Mikkel Heide Schierup.

Icelandic DNA jigsaw-puzzle brings new knowledge about Neanderthals