The gene pool of modern West Africans contains the "spirit" of a mysterious hominin, different from what we have found so far. Just as humans and Neanderthals mated, new research suggests that this ancient long-lost species may have mixed up with our ancestors on the African continent. Using genome-wide data from contemporary West Africans, scientists have found a small portion of the genetic material that appears to come from this mysterious line that is believed to have separated from the human pedigree before the Neanderthals.

Today, it is believed that anatomically modern humans come from Africa and that these populations have migrated to Europe and Asia, have crossed with related species such as Neanderthals and Denisized, although they are still under discussion. Modern West Africans, like the populations of Yoruba and Mende, therefore do not have the genes of either of these ancient species, but that does not mean that there is no intermingling. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the genetic past of West Africans may contain a similarly juicy narrative. This idea is difficult to confirm, because the old African remains and DNA are rare on the African continent and even more difficult to find in West Africa.

Fortunately, there is one way to get an idea of ​​how ancient people have mixed up, and they do not include the remains: modern genomics. Scientists decided to compare 405 modern genomes from the Yoruba and Mende populations to those from the Neanderthals and Denisovans. To their surprise, they also found traces of another previously unknown species of hominins in their genomes. Like modern people outside Africa, they still hold the traces of Neanderthal genes, authors in West Africa found populations derived from 2 to 19 percent of their genetic origin from this undiscovered ancient hominin. Interestingly, this is not the first time that ghosts of unknown extinct ancestors have been found in modern DNA. Scientists looking at Eurasian DNA have already found traces of at least three ancient hominins that have not yet been discovered in modern human genomes. But this is the first time for modern West African DNA.

The findings are supported by several other studies suggesting that there have been multiple crosses between archaic and modern human populations in Africa. This is known as genetic introgression, but while it is becoming a popular theory, it is not known exactly where, when and to what extent this mixing occurred. In fossil records, modern humans appear some 200 years ago, but in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, several fossils have been found with a mixture of archaic and modern elements that are only 000 years old.

As the authors of the new study say, "one interpretation of the recent era of introgression that we are documenting is that archaic forms in Africa persisted until recently," "Alternatively, the archaic population could get earlier." that we need more analyzes of African genomes across the continent than we can understand the real structure of our ancestors.

Tip from Sueneé Universe

Michael Tellinger: The Secret History of Anunnakes

Scientists have long believed that the first civilization on Earth was created before 6000 flights in Sumer. But Michael Tellinger reveals that the Sumerians and Egyptians have inherited their knowledge of an earlier civilization that lived on the southern tip of Africa and began the arrival of Anunnakes over 200 000 years ago. These ancient anunnaked astronauts, sent from planet Nibiru on Earth to mines gold to save the Nibirian atmosphere, created the first people as a kind of slave for the purpose of gold mining. Thus begins our worldwide tradition of obsession with gold, slavery and God as a ruler.