Our Tangled Family Tree: New Genomic Methods Offer Insight into the Legacy of Archaic Admixture.

ABSTRACT: The archaic ancestry present in the human genome has captured the imagination of both scientists and the wider public in recent years. This excitement is the result of new studies pushing the envelope of what we can learn from the archaic genetic information that has survived for over 50,000 years in the human genome. Here, we review the most recent ten years of literature on the topic of archaic introgression, including the current state of knowledge on Neanderthal and Denisovan introgression, as well as introgression from other as-yet unidentified archaic populations. We focus this review on four topics: 1) a reimagining of human demographic history, including evidence for multiple admixture events between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic populations; 2) state-o

SUBMITTER: Ahlquist KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8480178 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature