31 August 2012 Last updated at 02:17 ET By Helen Briggs BBC News <\/p>\n
The DNA of a cave girl who lived about 80,000 years ago has been analysed in remarkable detail. <\/p>\n
The picture of her genome is as accurate as that of modern day human genomes, and shows she had brown eyes, hair and skin. <\/p>\n
The research in Science also sheds new light on the genetic differences between modern humans and their closest extinct relatives. <\/p>\n
The cave dweller, a Denisovan, was a cousin of the Neanderthals. <\/p>\n
Both groups of ancient humans died out about 30,000 years ago, but have left their mark in the gene pool of modern people. <\/p>\n
The Denisovans have mysterious origins. They appear to have left little behind for palaeontologists save a tiny finger bone and a wisdom tooth found in Siberia's Denisova cave in 2010. Though some researchers have proposed a possible link between the Denisovans and human fossils from China that have previously been difficult to classify. <\/p>\n
A Russian scientist sent a fragment of the bone from Siberia to a team led by Svante Paabo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. <\/p>\n
He thought it might belong to an early modern human, but the results came as a surprise. <\/p>\n
DNA analysis revealed a human who was neither a Neanderthal nor a modern human but the first of a new group of ancient humans. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
More: 31 August 2012 Last updated at 02:17 ET By Helen Briggs BBC News The DNA of a cave girl who lived about 80,000 years ago has been analysed in remarkable detail. Continue reading
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