# Population Genetics > Paleogenetics > Paleolithic & Mesolithic >  Unknown mtDNA lineage found in 40,000 hominid in Russia : Neanderthal connection ?

## Maciamo

This is some major news.

NY Times : Bone May Reveal a New Human Group




> But they say the genetic material extracted from the bone, an element called mitochondrial DNA, belonged to a distinct human lineage that migrated out of Africa at a different time from the two known archaic human species. Homo erectus, found in East Asia, left Africa two million years ago, and the ancestor of Neanderthals emigrated some 500,000 years ago. The number of differences found in the child’s DNA indicate that its ancestors left Africa about one million years ago, the researchers say.
> ...
> The finger bone was found in a layer laid down on the cave floor between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago, according to radiocarbon dating.


BBC News : DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman' 




> An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans.


I wonder how they can make such bold statement as to say it is different from Neanderthal when there were many subgroups of Neanderthals and many have never been tested. This could well be Eastern (Central Asian) Neanderthalian DNA, possibly in a hybrid specimen, the one most likely to have interbred with Homo Sapiens, and possibly the one that passed on the mutation for red hair and blue eyes to modern Europeans (via the Indo-Europeans from Russia).

Unfortunately there is no autosomal or Y-chromosomal DNA, and with just a finger nothing can be said of the racial type of this hominid. If it was a third kind of hominid contemporary to Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens, we would have found remains before.

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