Study recovers genetic data from extinct relative of humans

RESEARCHERS from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of Copenhagen have achieved a scientific first by using 2-million-year-old protein traces to determine the biological sex and uncover previously hidden genetic variation in Paranthropus robustus, an extinct close relative of modern humans.

- STAFF REPORTER

Published in the journal Science, the research analysed ancient proteins extracted from fossilised teeth discovered in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind.

The remarkable discovery represents some of the oldest human genetic data ever recovered from Africa and challenges established understandings of this early hominin. The study's co-lead, Dr Palesa Madupe, a research associate at UCT’s Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI) and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen’s Globe Institute, is part of a powerful African cohort transforming palaeoanthropology from within.

“Because we can sample multiple African Pleistocene hominin individuals classified within the same group, were now able to observe not just biological sex, but for the first time genetic differences that might have existed among them,” said Madupe.

UCT’s HERI played a central role in the research, with co-director Professor Rebecca Ackermann as a senior author, and contributions from co-director Robyn Pickering and multiple HERI research associates.