A paper published yesterday in the prestigious journal Nature (Quiamei Fu, et al., 2026, Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10478-8) identified protein from the teeth of Homo erectus remains of ~400,000 years of age from 3 sites in China, and found that "all specimens from all three sites share two amino acid variants. Of these, A253G in AMBN is previously unknown and has not been identified in other human lineages, including H. erectus from Dmanisi (Georgia), Homo antecessor from Atapuerca (Spain), Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans. The other variant, AMBN(M273V), has previously been identified in Denisovans, and our evidence now indicates it may have been introduced through populations related to these Middle Pleistocene H. erectus. The regions in the Denisovan genome attributed to super-archaic introgression, some of which later passed to modern humans, are likely to have originated from H. erectus. Late Middle Pleistocene H. erectus may have coexisted with Denisovans in parts of East Asia, where these interactions are presumed to have occurred." A clear link between Denisovans and erectus!
This new variant does not appear in any other primate except these Homo erectus.
AMBN(M273V) from erectus to Denisovan to human!
Then, is the second protein now found in Homo erectus was originally detected in Denisovans.
This discovery suggest that it was passed on from erectus to Denisovans.
This variant known as AMBN(M273V), results from a mutation (single-nucleotide polymorphism or SNP), at rs564905233, where adenine switched to guanine: A→G. Surprisingly, this mutation is also found in humans, and is believed to have introgressed into them, from Denisovans. The paper mentions its frequency as follows: "... 21% in the Philippines, 1.17% in India, 0.71% in Papua New Guinea, and is absent from most other modern human populations." Interestingly Denisovans have admixed mainly with humans from the Southeastern Asia region, including Papua New Guinea and Sunda islands.
Previous studies (see my posts: here, here and here) suggested that Denisovans admixed with superarchaic ancestors, a group that split from ours over 1 million years ago. The authors point out that "genomic studies reveal that Denisovans received 0.5–8% gene flow from a hominin whose ancestors diverged more than 1 Ma from the common lineage ancestral to Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans, and about 15% of these ‘super-archaic’ DNA regions introgressed from Denisovans into Asian and Oceanian individuals. This situation is similar to what we observe with AMBN(M273V). Consequently, this variant is not exclusive to Denisovans but appears to have been introduced into them through a population linked to Middle Pleistocene H. erectus from Zhoukoudian, Hexian, and Sunjiadong."
So the Homo erectus in China had sex with Denisovans and passed on alleles that eventually ended up in South East Asians and Oceanians! Below is Fig. 4 in this paper, captioned: " A possible model of gene flow related to AMBN(M273V) among H. erectus associated with the populations of Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong, Denisovans and modern humans."
The paper also clarified the status of two specimens from Hexian, which carry the new AMBN(A253G) mutation found in Homo erectus but absent in Denisovans like (Denisova 3, Penghu 1, and Harbin) this suggests that the Hexian remains belong to the H. erectus clade.
It would be interesting to find if the variant shared by erectus with humans via the Denisovans is found in other groups beyond SE Asia and PNG. For instance, in America, and in ancient human remains. However, the paper states that it is "absent" in most other human populations.
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