Ancient tooth proteins link Homo erectus to Denisovans (opens in new tab)

Proteins extracted from six roughly 400,000-year-old teeth from China provided molecular evidence linking Homo erectus with Denisovans and, indirectly, modern humans, according to articles describing the study. The analysis identified a tooth-protein variant in Homo erectus that also appears in Denisovans and in people today, supporting the idea that genetic material from an older human lineage entered Denisovans and later reached Homo sapiens. The finding helps fill a gap in molecular eviden...