It ’s a well - known fact that there ’s a lot ofinterspecies minglingin the human family tree . It ’s decipherable that modernistic humans have fragments of DNA from our ancient relatives , like theNeanderthalsand theDenisovans , but it also come out that other mystery species last on in the genomes of some modernistic - 24-hour interval populations .

In January 2019 , an international team of researchers examined human DNA using rich learning algorithms to analyze genetic clew to human phylogeny for the very first time . The results were published in the journalNature Communications .

It ’s long been suspected that , further to the Neanderthals and Denisovans , people of Asiatic descent have a third ancestor that interbred with ancient humans . This determination would aid explicate the beingness of certain DNA fragments that otherwise have no apparent source .

Those suspicions were apparently confirmed by the 2019 research . This long - fall back hominid was probable a Neanderthal - Denisovan hybrid , the research worker say , but little else is known about it .

" About 80,000 years ago , the so - called Out of Africa hap , when part of the human population , which already consisted of modern humans , abandoned the African continent and migrated to other continents , render acclivity to all the current populations , " Jaume Bertranpetit , master investigator at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology , said in astatement .

" We know that from that time onwards , modern human cross with Neanderthals in all the continents , except Africa , and with the Denisovans in Oceania and in all probability in Southeast Asia , although the evidence of mark - training with a third extinct species had not been confirm with any sure thing . "

The discovery came from the ability of deep learning or artificial intelligence ( AI ) . This , the research worker say , has made it possible to transition from DNA to the demographics of ancestral populations – a task that would have been too complex and cumbersome to fill out manually .

Òscar Lao , the principal investigator of the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico ( CNAG - CRG ) in Spain , compared the tech to the nervous system of mammal , with various dissimilar stilted nerve cell that see to notice patterns in data .

" We have used this holding to get the algorithm to learn to predict human demographics using genomes obtain through 100 of thousands of simulations , " Laoexplained .

" Whenever we be given a pretending we are travel along a possible route in the account of humankind . Of all simulations , deep learning allows us to observe what make the transmissible teaser fit together . "

The existence of this new ancestor is also supported by fogey evidence find in Siberia last August . The bone appear to have belonged to aNeanderthal - Denisovan " love child " – or hybrid . While further psychoanalysis revealed the Denisovan father had at least one Neanderthal antecedent , evoke this form of interspecies coupling was a more regular occurrence .

The investigator say the study implies the cross - species soul was not a one - off but instead , part of a process ofintrogression . However , they are not yet prevail out other possibilities .

An earlier version of thisarticle was publishedin January 2019 .