Natural Sciences Active Updated Aug 3, 2026
Are there lost human ancestors hiding in our DNA?
Ghost ancestor lineages in human DNA
Where it stands as of Sep 4, 2026
A team led by Priya Moorjani at UC Berkeley scanned more than 500 modern human genomes and found two previously unknown archaic lineages that interbred with our ancestors, one of which left DNA in every person alive today, contributing about 1% of the genome. A Science study using the same fossil-free method suggests those lineages are Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus. What the surviving gene regions actually do in people has not been established.
Researchers built a new method to reconstruct family trees across hundreds of modern human genomes and are finding traces of extinct archaic human populations that left no known fossils. The stakes are whether this genomic approach can recover parts of human population history, especially in Africa and the tropics, that fossil and ancient-DNA evidence has never been able to reach.
The story so far
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Aug 3, 2026 Latest
A Science study using a new fossil-free detection method found the ghost lineage carried by everyone alive today likely belongs to Homo heidelbergensis, while the super-archaic lineage found in Oceanian populations likely belongs to Homo erectus, and both archaic gene regions concentrate in parts of the genome tied to immune function and metabolism.
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Aug 2, 2026
ScienceDaily reported further detail from the same UC Berkeley team: the ghost lineage found in all modern humans contributed about 1% of the genome, similar to the Neanderthal share, and split from our ancestors around 800,000 years ago, while the super-archaic lineage traced back roughly 1.8 million years and interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia over 200,000 years ago before that Denisovan DNA reached modern humans.
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Jul 31, 2026
A team led by geneticist Priya Moorjani at UC Berkeley built a new method that scanned and cross-referenced more than 500 modern human genomes and identified two previously unknown 'ghost' archaic lineages that interbred with our ancestors, one that left DNA in every person alive today and a 'super-archaic' one whose branch may have split off from the rest of humanity nearly 2 million years ago.
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