Various articles report the results of separate studies on fossils belonging to species of the genus Homo whose identification is based on fossils discovered in China and Israel, respectively. In both cases, the publication caused controversy. Three articles published in the journal “The Innovation” report various aspects of the identification of what was named Homo longi, based on a skull dated at least 146,000 years discovered in modern-day China. Three articles published in the journal “Science” report various aspects of the identification of a population that belongs to the genus Homo for now indicated only as Homo from Nesher Ramla, based on fossils dated between 120,000 and 140,000 years ago.

An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the results of the sequencing of DNA found in the sediments of the Denisova Cave, in Siberia. A team of researchers achieved the largest sequencing ever conducted on genomes recovered from sediments from a single site with 728 samples. The results offer a picture of the occupation of that cave over a period of more than 300,000 years by three human species: the Denisovans, the Neanderthals, and the Homo sapiens. However, most of the samples turned out to be DNA from various animals, which is also useful because it offers information on the connection between humans and the species that various populations ate.

An article published in the journal “Current Biology” reports the sequencing of the whole genome of the woman who lived about 35,000 years ago in today’s Romania and is referred to as Pestera Muierii 1. A team of researchers led by Professor Mattias Jakobsson of Uppsala University, Sweden, successfully conducted the first complete sequencing of this woman’s DNA. It’s one of the very few complete genomes of people who lived over 30,000 years ago. Its genetic diversity compared to today’s humans suggests that some of it was lost during the Ice Age and not in the migration from Africa.