Evidence for Homo erectus genes in Papuans (and Chinese)?

Steve Sailer says he's "been alerted that there should be science news soon of a caliber comparable to the recent human-neanderthal inter-mating story." At Gene Expression, Greg Cochran calls attention to a comparison in the supplementary material of the Neanderthal genome paper showing "San closer to Han+French than to" Papuans. The San are also shown to be closer to the French than to the Chinese (and the Papuan closer to Han than French), though to a lesser degree. In addition, the San are shown to be closer to Han+French than to Yorubans, perhaps reflecting archaic admixture among West Africans; on the other hand, Yorubans are closer to non-Africans than to San.

Incidentally, this last point is in keeping with Kalinowski's assertion based on autosomal STR data. But as before I'm inclined to attribute any increased similarity between Negroids (as opposed to Bushmen) and non-Africans to back-migration from Eurasia to Africa, given that Y chromosomes likely of ultimate Eurasian origin (namely, E, and to a much lesser extent R1b, lineages) predominate among Negroids, while among Bushmen older clades predominate.

Update: A commenter passes on a link to a Google translation of a Spanish newspaper article reporting that Paabo and friends have sequenced the genome of the Denisova hominin, evidently a Homo erectus, and found evidence that genes related to the specimen persist in Melanesians. Update 2: Links are now dead (I assume the story is still supposed to be under embargo); see below for Google translation. Update 3: Much more information on this story is now available elsewhere, of course.

Describe the genome of a new hominid

An international study, led by the Max Planck Institute in Germany and involving the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) has described the genome of a new hominid, Denisova, who shared a common origin with the Neanderthals.

December 22, 1910 - Barcelona - Ep

The study "Genetic history of an archaic group homin from Denisova Cave in Siberia ', to be published in the journal' Nature ', part of the mitochondrial DNA analysis of a finger bone 30,000 years ago found in a cave in Denisova, in Southern Siberia in Russia, which contained a rare genetic sequence suggesting that it was a form of ancient hominid not yet described.

The latest analysis of the nuclear genome of the extinct hominid and morphology of a tooth from the same specimen suggests a different story. The researcher of the Institute of Evolutionary Bilogía Marquet-Bone Toms UPF studied regions of the genome structural variants that are linked to some human diseases indicate that the genome of Denisovanes is more archaic than that of other hominids, as it shares some features with the chimpanzee genome.

On this basis, the Denisovanes seem to have been a group of hominids who shared a common origin with the ancient Neanderthals, but later had a different evolution. Unlike the Neanderthals, the Denisovanes not contribute to all Eurasian genes today.

However, appear to be closely related to modern populations in Melanesia, a region of Oceania, which suggests that there was interbreeding with the antepsados of the Melanesians. In fact, the current Melanesians are between 4% and 6% of the genetic material Denisovanes extinguished. The discovery of Denisovanes south of Siberia suggests that this group occupied much of Asia during the late Pleistocene - about 50,000 years ago -.

After DNA analysis, researchers have deduced that the Denisova finger bone belonged to a girl between 6 and 7, who belonged to a group of common genetic origin with Neanderthals, while showing a different population history to this group.

The analysis of a tooth of same specimen, shows a different morphology of Neanderthals and modern humans are more like the old forms of Homo erectus and Homo habilis. Specifically, Denisova genome suggests a complex picture of genetic interactions between the ancestors of humans and other groups of hominids that lived at that time.