Ancient DNA adds to evidence for Native Americans' east Asian ancestry

Ancient DNA from a 14,000-year-old skull found in south-west China reveals that the individual was a member of our species, Homo sapiens, and had genetic ties to the east Asian ancestors of Native Americans.

The cranium, which belonged to an individual known as Mengzi Ren, was unearthed in 1989 in Red Deer Cave in the Yunnan province of China. Since then, it has been debated whether the skull belonged to an archaic human, such as a Neanderthal or Denisovan, or a member of our species.

Now, Bing Su at the Kunming Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues have established that Mengzi Ren was a female H. sapiens by analysing ancient DNA from the specimen. The team sequenced a fraction of the total genome, just 100 million DNA bases, but this was enough to establish the individual’s species-level identity.

By Carissa Wong

Side view of an ancient skull found in Red Deer Cave, China

Xueping Ji