DNA from Mysterious Ancient Hominins Made Its Way to America -- And It May Have Helped Early Humans Survive

The Debrief ^ | August 22, 2025 | Micah Hanks

[SunkenCiv]

During the last Ice Age, modern humans had ongoing encounters with more than one variety of now-extinct Pleistocene-era hominin.

Those encounters, according to new research, not only resulted in interbreeding between homo sapiens and other types of archaic humans -- they may have helped some of the earliest arrivals in North America survive...

The earliest arrival of anatomically modern humans in North America has been a subject of intense debate for several decades. Increasingly with time, discoveries by archaeologists have continued to push back the time scales on when those arrivals began, with initial estimates of early human dispersals into North America beginning as recently as around 13,000 years ago now having been expanded to well past 20,000 years ago.

Recent confirmation of human ichnofossil footprints at White Sands National Park, dating to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, offers compelling clues to an ever-expanding narrative of human migrations into North America...

Naturally, if humans arrived much earlier than previously believed possible, this suggests that the harsh conditions of the last Ice Age may also have been prevalent at the time of these early migrations into America...

For their study, Villanea and the team examined genomes collected from a diverse range of humans worldwide, with a particular focus on the MUC19 gene, which plays a crucial role in the immune system.

Notably, this suggests that the ancient genetic material obtained during early encounters between humans and Denisovans may have contributed to the survival of their descendants as they migrated into the previously uncharted Americas at the end of the Ice Age.

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; ancientnavigation; denisovans; dna; dragonman; genealogy; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; hominids; iceage; micahhanks; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; paleolithic; pleistocene; thedebrief; thegoddessandthebull; whitesands; whoops

[SunkenCiv]

A digital reconstruction of the Harbin skull, which is now believed to be the most complete fossil cranium belonging to the now extinct Denisovans

Wikimedia Commons/CC 4.0

[SunkenCiv]

Heh, forgot to include the link before.

[Texas Eagle]

During the last Ice Age,

The LAST Ice Age? Wait, what? What causes an Ice Age to end?

[BenLurkin]

Was it you that recommended The Goddess and the Bull?

Reading it now, and am remind how much archaeology and paleo-archeology allow themselves to be swayed in their conclusions by meager amounts of discovered artifacts.

[SaveFerris]

I think 🤔 I saw him in a GEICO commercial a couple of times

Or is he a Texas Democrat by any chance?

[SaveFerris]

[What causes an Ice Age to end?]

Duh

Global Warming!

How dare you!

😃😁🤣🤣😂

[Texas Eagle]

Heh, heh.

[SunkenCiv]

Selections from the Denisovans, White Sands, and Pleistocene keywords, sorted:

• DNA from Mysterious Ancient Hominins Made Its Way to America -- And It May Have Helped Early Humans Survive [08/22/2025]
• Study suggests human occupation in Patagonia prior to the Younger Dryas period [08/14/2025]
• Mystery Archaic Hominins Lived in Sulawesi 1.04 Million Years Ago [08/09/2025]
• 'Mystery population' of human ancestors gave us 20% of our genes and may have boosted our brain function [08/08/2025]
• "Strange" -- Scientists Discover Ghostly 23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints in New Mexico [06/24/2025]
• 22,000-Year-Old Evidence of Transport Technology Reshapes Our Understanding of the Ancient Americas [03/01/2025]
• Native Americans Inherited Lip Shape Gene from Denisovans [01/10/2025]
• Humans Had Sex With At Least Three Different Denisovan Populations [11/22/2024]
• Multi-layered site in Tajikistan's Zeravshan Valley uncovered, offering new insights into human expansion [11/13/2024]
• Humans Reached Argentina by 20,000 Years Ago -- and They May Have Survived by Eating Giant Armadillos, Study Suggests [07/19/2024]
• Denisovan Bone Discovered on Tibetan Plateau [07/14/2024]
• Scientists link elusive human group to 150,000-year-old Chinese 'dragon man' [04/08/2024]
• Archaeologists Discover Intact 90,000-Year-Old Human Footprints on Moroccan Beach [01/31/2024]
• Are You a Morning Person? You Might Want to Thank Your Neanderthal Genes [12/14/2023]
• Hominins Hunted Beavers At Least 400,000 Years Ago, Ancient Bones Reveal [12/03/2023]
• DNA Shows Native Americans Have Origin in Western Eurasia [11/06/2023]
• Humans having sex with a now-extinct species 60,000 years ago could be why you suffer from mental health issues, study claims [11/03/2023]
• Mysterious and Life-size camel carvings have been found in Saudi Arabian desert [10/19/2023]
• New path for early human migrations through a once-lush Arabia contradicts a single 'out of Africa' origin [10/09/2023]
• A Controversial Paper Claimed Humans Came to North America 23,000 Years Ago. It Just Got Backup. [10/05/2023]
• Retcon Climate Science Blames Humans For Fires 13,000 Years Ago [09/01/2023]
• Remains found in China may belong to third human lineage [08/11/2023]
• Mysterious ancient humans may have given people of Papua New Guinea an immune advantage [12/16/2022]
• Researchers Sequence DNA of Post-Columbian Domestic Horse [08/01/2022]
• Researchers chart advances in ancient DNA technology [07/26/2022]
• Molecular archaeology: What ancient genes tell us about who we are [06/06/2022]
• Tooth of an Ancient Girl Fills Gap in Human Family Tree [05/18/2022]
• Ancient Tooth Once Belonged to The Mysterious Denisovans, Scientists Think [05/17/2022]
• Ancient Human Footprints in New Mexico Dated to Ice Age [04/10/2022]
• Artificial Intelligence Has Found an Unknown 'Ghost' Ancestor in The Human Genome [11/04/2021]
• Etched in sands of time: 'We knew they were old' (Human footprints - oldest known humans in America 23,000 years ago) [09/24/2021]
• Fossil footprints show humans in North America more than 21,000 years ago [09/24/2021]
• Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas [09/23/2021]
• One Living People Today Show More Traces of The Mysterious Denisovans Than Any Others [08/23/2021]
• Neandertal and Denisovan blood groups deciphered [08/08/2021]
• Just 7% Of Our DNA Is Unique To Modern Humans, Study Shows [07/17/2021]
• The first evidence for Late Pleistocene dogs in Italy [08/22/2020]
• DNA from Denisovans can be found in humans today: DNA from an unknown ancient ancestor of humans that once bred with Denisovans still exists among people today, study reveals [08/07/2020]
• Humans and Neanderthals: less different than polar and brown bears [06/12/2020]
• Evidence of Late Pleistocene human colonization of isolated islands beyond Wallace's Line [05/04/2020]
• Mysterious 'ghost population' of ancient humans discovered in African DNA [02/15/2020]
• A study refutes the similarities between the teeth of Denisovans and modern Asians [01/01/2020]
• The first known fossil of a Denisovan skull has been found in a Siberian cave [04/08/2019]
• Extinct human species lived together in Siberian cave, new research shows [02/16/2019]

[SunkenCiv]

Nope, that rings a bell though, I must have seen the same post.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Goddess-and-the-Bull-Catalhoyuk-An-Archaeological-Journey-to-the-Dawn-of-Civilization/Balter/p/book/9781598740691

[SunkenCiv]

Turns out, someone had bumped the thermostat and no one checked it for 20K years.

[SaveFerris]

It was all the SUVs that the cavemen were driving around

And they WOULDN’T buy any Carbon Credits

Savages....

[Bobbyvotes]

Ice age melted by one million times bigger SUN. Humans could barely start a fire using twigs and Flintstones during ice age.

[sevlex]

“Or is he a Texas Democrat by any chance?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looks too intelligent.

[BenLurkin]

He writes well, in my opinion.

[SaveFerris]

I just didn’t say the name ...

😄😃🤣🤣😂

[noiseman]

Humans could barely start a fire using twigs and Flintstones during ice age.

Maybe someone should have told them that Fred and Barney aren’t real.

[cuz1961]

modern humans had
sex with fallen angels and birthed Nephiliam that Darwin cultists academia calls Pleistocene-era hominin.

Not extinct, now known as big foot, Sasquatch,,yeti,,ect.

[Dr. Zzyzx]

Of course, then, there are the homonyms—a whole different thing entirely: One of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning, such as bank (embankment) and bank (place where money is kept).

[Billthedrill]

Wait, you’re saying that hominin is a homonym of homonym? And vice versa? Do you supposed hominins used homonyms? And did they listen to them on homophones? I’m confused...

[AndyJackson]

Global warming. That’s what. Were it not for global warming walruses and penguins and polar bears and eskimos would be running the world.