The evolutionary tree diagram for modern humans a bit of a mess - humans have n’t had a skinny relative on this planet for over 10,000 geezerhood , but there used to be several other tight related species subsist at the same time . inherited psychoanalysis on osseous tissue fragments from Neanderthals and Denisovans has given us new brainwave into our not - so - distant evolutionary past . The results indicate that not only did Denisovans and Neanderthals interbreed with modern Homo sapiens , but they also mated with an unnamed fourthhominingroup . This information was presented to evolutionary geneticists last week for a meeting of theRoyal Society .

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis emerged about 200,000 age ago and remains have been find throughout Europe , dilute into primal Asia . While Neanderthals were n’t as cognitively advanced as Homo sapiens who come forth around the same sentence , they were belike the first hominins known to assume clothing , swallow up numb , and pattern languages . It has been traditionally thought that the last common antecedent of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals existed around 400,000 years ago , thoughnew research suggestsit could have been earlier .

Denisovans are an out group of hominins that are part of our evolutionary lineage . Our knowledge of them comes from bone sherd found in a cave that go out back about 30,000 - 50,000 old age . Though genetic psychoanalysis had been done a couplet years ago , the results were n’t really clean . New techniques have yielded much more complete inherited sequences and two newfangled studies have released unlike yet relate results .

There is evidence of sure populations of humans alive today getting as much as 4 % of their DNA from Denisovans , though there is some debate circumvent it . Additionally , there are the great unwashed with ancestries outside of Africa that could have gotten about 2 % of their genome from Neanderthals , though there is some speculation with this as well .

Right now , the identity of this fourth other human groupremains a mystery story . They could have come from Asia , but that has not yet been made certain . Future research will hopefully identify this unidentified universe and help us well realize all of the unlike evolutionary inputs that make us who we are .