Question

QUESTION 8 You have discovered bones that you think might be Neanderthal or Denisovan. Describe the strategy (based on molecular evolutionary principles) that you would use and the possible outcomes, along with your rationale. In your answer, include potential pitfalls that you might encounter.

Answer 1

The very first strategy to differentiate the Neanderthal bones from that of the Denisovan is the DNA which is hereditary material and can provide knowledge about various things and can give idea about its origin of the species.

The mitochondrial DNA can be extracted and further DNA sequencing can be done from the bone.

Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMs) can also be used which is basically peptide fingerprinting for (mineralized) collagenous materials. A protein fibre found in bone, can survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Every major mammal group has a distinctive type of collagen, and ZooMs can read its structure like a molecular barcode, identifying which animal was the originator of a particular bone.

After sequencing the DNA of the bone it can be matched with previously sequenced DNA of Neanderthal and Denisovan.

On the basis of the DNA the age and eventually the time period can be determined hence if the time period comes to some where 30–14,500 years ago then the bones belongs to Denisovan and if it comes in between about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago then the bones belongs to Neanderthal.

Potential pitfalls :-  Current techniques for identifying bone involve the time-consuming process of extracting and sequencing DNA. If the bone is being chewed up then it again becomes difficult to identify. As the DNA consist of varios sequences it becomes hard to match.