Study Claims Philippine Aeta Group Highest Denisovan DNA

Genetic analysis has found clear traces that humans and Denisovans interbred in the past. The Philippine ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon has the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, Mihai Andrei reported for ZME Science.

Photo Insert: Aeta man in Santa Ana, Pampanga

The Negrito group in the Philippines comprises some 25 different ethnic groups, scattered throughout the Andaman archipelago in South-East Asia.

They were once considered to be a single population, but the more researchers looked into it, the more they found that Negritos are actually very diverse.

In the new study, Maximilian Larena of Uppsala University and colleagues set out to establish the demographic history of the Philippines. Their project involved indigenous cultural communities, local universities, as well as official and non-governmental organizations from the area.

With everyone working together, they were able to analyze 2.3 million genotypes from 118 ethnic groups in the Philippines — including the diverse Negrito populations.

The results were particularly intriguing for a population called the Ayta Magbukon, which still occupy vast swaths of their ancestral land and continue to coexist with the lowland population surrounding them.

The Ayta Magbukon in Luzon seem to possess the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, Larena’s study claimed. Larena comes from the Philippines and his study has been sent to some local publications late last year.

“We made this observation despite the fact that Philippine Negritos were recently admixed with East Asian-related groups—who carry little Denisovan ancestry, and which consequently diluted their levels of Denisovan ancestry,” said Larena.

“If we account for and masked away the East Asian-related ancestry in Philippine Negritos, their Denisovan ancestry can be up to 46 percent greater than that of Australians and Papuans.”

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