Oldest Homo Sapien DNA Discovered

The oldest DNA ever retrieved from a Homo Sapien bone has been discovered, scientists announced Wednesday.

The discovery, from a bone belinging to a man who died around 45,000 years ago in west Siberia could help shed light on human history and migration.

The genome interestingly contains traces from Neanderthals, a cousin species to the Homo Sapien who died out, proving suspicions that the two groups interbred.

Previously it was though that Homo Sapiens evolved in East Africa around 200,000 years ago left the continent around 90,000 years ago.

In an article published in Nature journal, the scientific team estimate interbreeding between neanderthals and Homo Sapiens occurred 7,000 to 13,000 years before the Siberian individual lived, therefore no more than 60,000 years ago.

This provides a rough date for estimating when Homo Sapiens headed into South Asia.

The new study narrows down this timeframe to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, which coincides with the expansion of modern humans into Europe, and possibly Asia.

"There is a dispute as to when that 'Out of Africa' event happened and this fossil helps to look at that," said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. "It is close to the time I think that modern humans exited from Africa and gave rise to the populations in the rest of the world. I think that exit happened 60,000 years ago."