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From: RonO <rokimoto557@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Dragon Man skull identified as Denisovan by mitochondrial DNA
 from dental plague
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:42:37 -0500
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On 6/23/2025 6:01 AM, Ernest Major wrote:
> On 20/06/2025 19:46, RonO wrote:
>> https://www.science.org/content/article/dragon-man-skull-belongs- 
>> mysterious-human-relative
>>
>> Maybe the individual just ate Denisovans.
>>
>> Original news article from 2021.
>>
>> https://www.science.org/content/article/stunning-dragon-man-skull-may- 
>> be-elusive-denisovan-or-new-species-human
>>
>> The skull looks like a robust Neanderthal.  Sort of Homo erectus with 
>> a huge brain and a flatter face.
>>
>> Ron Okimoto
>>
> 
> John Hawks has a short review of the subject.
> 
> https://www.johnhawks.net/p/the-humanity-of-a-new-denisovan
> 
Hawks brings up the peculiar nature of Denisovan mitochondrial DNA.  It 
may be that Denisovans got their mitochondrial DNA (maternally 
inherited) by interbreeding with Homo erectus individuals that inhabited 
Asia before the Neanderthal/Denisovan immigrants got there in their 
migration out of Africa around 800,000 years ago.

It may have been among the mitochondrial DNA genomes within that 
original Neanderthal/Denisovan African population, and it may have been 
lost from Neanderthals when they interbred with African modern humans 
around 250,000 years ago in a migration out of Africa that failed to 
establish a population of modern humans, but did result in Neanderthals 
adopting the modern human mito DNA that took over their population.  The 
reason to suspect introgression from Homo erectus for the Denisovan mito 
is due to the fact that Denisovans have evidence for interbreeding with 
a more ancient Homo in their genome.

This just means that the Denisovan mitochondral DNA may not be the 
original Denisovan mitochondrial DNA, and this fossil individual may not 
be a Denisovan, but what Homo erectus evolved into in Asia and it's 
population could be the source of the Denisovan mitochondrial DNA. 
Denisovans interbred with a more Ancient Homo and may have adopted the 
ancient Homo mitochodrial genome and lost what they originally had, like 
Neanderthals lost what they originally had when they interbred with 
modern humans 250,000 years ago.

Ron Okimoto