How a DNA revolution has decoded the origins of our humanity

Mapping the genomes of our ancestors has allowed scientists to uncover secrets and discover new mysteries in our evolution

Robin McKie, Observer science editor
Saturday 18 November 2017 19.05 EST

Scientists made a remarkable discovery at Trou Al’Wesse in Belgium earlier this year. Inside a cave that overlooks the Hoyoux river they found clear evidence it had been occupied by Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago. Yet the cave contained no skull fragments, no teeth – nor any other skeletal remains of this extinct species of human being.

The team, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, were sure of their ground, however. Their genetic analysis of soil samples, scraped from the cave floor, had pinpointed the presence of Neanderthals through that most definitive of biological markers: their DNA.

In other words, without digging up a bone or a molar, the team, led by geneticist Michael Meyer, had found – merely by studying a few microscopic strands of DNA – that tens of thousands of years ago Neanderthals had sheltered at Trou Al’Wesse. It was the scientific equivalent of “extracting gold dust from the air”, as one researcher put it.

Such hyperbole is understandable. The Trou Al’Wesse sediments would have been packed with DNA from plants, bacteria and other cave animals that had accumulated over millennia – as well as possible contaminating genetic material from the scientists themselves. Yet the Leipzig group, whose work was reported in Science in April, was able to pinpoint the few invisible scraps of Neanderthal DNA that had lingered there and enrich this material until they had enough to study its makeup in detail, a feat they later repeated at several other caves in Europe and Asia.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/19/human-evolution-dna-revolution-mapping-genome