Humans In 2012,
DNA analysis and
statistical techniques were used to infer that a now-extinct human population in northern Eurasia had interbred with both the ancestors of Europeans and a Siberian group that later migrated to the Americas. The group was referred to as a ghost population because they were identified by the echoes that they leave in genomes—not by bones or ancient DNA. In 2013, another study found the remains of a member of this ghost group, fulfilling the earlier prediction that they had existed. According to a study published in 2020, there are indications that 2% to 19% (or about ≃6.6 and ≃7.0%) of the DNA of four West African populations may have come from an unknown archaic hominin which split from the ancestor of Sapiens (Modern Humans) and Neanderthals between 360 kya to 1.02 mya. Basal West Africans did not split before
Neanderthals split from modern humans. Even before 300,000 BP to 200,000 BP, when the ancestors of the modern
San split from other modern humans, the group to split the most early from
modern humans may have been Basal West Africans. Another recent study, which discovered substantial amounts of previously undescribed human genetic variation, also found ancestral genetic variation in Africans that predates modern humans and was lost in most non-Africans.
Other animals In 2015, a study of the lineage and early migration of the domestic pig found that the best model that fitted the data included gene flow from a ghost population during the
Pleistocene that is now extinct. A 2018 study suggests that the common ancestor of the
wolf and the
coyote may have interbred with an unknown canid related to the
dhole. ==See also==