400,000-year-old teeth suggest Homo erectus exchanged genes with Denisovans and may have left a legacy in modern humans
Study recovers molecular data from fossils too old for DNA, revealing routine interbreeding among archaic human lineages
A study published in Nature has extracted ancient proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth, indicating that the species may have exchanged genes with Denisovans in East Asia and may have left a small but detectable genetic trace in living people in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and across Southeast Asia.