Traces of Two Extinct ‘Ghost’ Ancestors Were Found Hiding in Modern Human DNA, Hinting at Our Extremely Complex Family Tree

Researchers used a new method to investigate past interbreeding with Homo sapiens that doesn’t require ancient DNA. The technique identified areas of living humans’ genomes that came from unknown hominins, including one from a 1.8-million-year-old lineage

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

August 7, 2026 11:34 a.m.

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The evolutionary tree that produced Homo sapiens might contain more knots than previously thought.

Researchers have identified traces of two ancient hominin species in the DNA of modern humans. One of these “ghost” ancestors interbred with H. sapiens more than 50,000 years ago, while the other contributed genetic material indirectly via Denisovans—another of our extinct cousins—more than 200,000 years ago, according to a study published on July 30 in the journal Science.

H. sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans, which all once lived at the same time, descended from a common ancestor in Africa. Ancestors of modern humans diverged from that lineage roughly 550,000 to 765,000 years ago, and the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans later diverged from one another.  

Eventually, those extinct species spread to Eurasia. After H. sapiens evolved around 300,000 years ago, some populations migrated out of Africa and caught up with their cousins, where interbreeding took place. Today, snippets of the modern human genetic instruction book, or genome, come from Neanderthals and Denisovans. Most non-African people inherited about 1 to 2 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals, while individuals from Asia and Oceania inherited roughly 0.1 to 5 percent of their genomes from Denisovans.

Earlier work had already suggested that our genome includes DNA from hominins besides those two relatives. But the new study tracked where their contributions lie in our genome and revealed when their genetic material entered ours. Researchers accomplished the feat using a novel technique that can examine current-day human DNA, rather than relying on ancient DNA.

“We no longer have to wait for extraordinary fossil preservation to learn about extinct human populations,” study co-author Priya Moorjani, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, tells Live Science’s Charles Q. Choi. “Instead, the genomes of living people contain traces of these ancient ancestors, and genealogical methods allow us to recover some of that hidden history.”

She and her colleagues analyzed more than 500 living humans’ genomes from a database created to catalogue our genetic variations. The new research technique helped them recreate genealogical relationships across various parts of H. sapiens DNA, building a family tree that showed how genetic segments are related through shared ancestry.  

“I believe it is the next frontier of research in human genetics because it allows us to even learn about our ancestors for whom we don’t have any fossil [DNA] evidence,” Moorjani tells New Scientist’s Michael Le Page.

The team successfully identified DNA from Neanderthals and Denisovans. But they also found evidence of genetic material from two other hominin relatives, which each entered the modern human genome at a distinct time.

Analyses revealed that one of these ghost ancestors is responsible for around 1 percent of modern human genomes. That indicates that they interbred with H. sapiens before our species’ most recent migration from Africa into Eurasia around 50,000 years ago. This ghost ancestor might have been H. heidelbergensis, the team suggests, a species that lived in Europe, parts of Africa and potentially Asia around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago.

“I agree with their speculation that this ghost could have been the species Homo heidelbergensis, which was present in Africa as recently as 300,000 years ago,” Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist the Natural History Museum in London who did not participate in the study, tells Live Science.

Whoever this mysterious relative was, they diverged approximately 800,000 years ago from the lineage that eventually produced modern humans. That’s around the same time that the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans branched off.

The other recently identified ancestor comes from a much older lineage dating back 1.8 million years. Genetic traces of this “super-archaic” ancestor were identified in the genomes of people in Oceania, though only inside regions inherited from Denisovans. This indicates that this mysterious hominin interbred with Denisovans, who then interbred with H. sapiens, passing on the hominin’s DNA indirectly. This extremely ancient population may have been H. erectus, according to the researchers, early humans who lived in parts of Africa and Asia between around 110,000 and 1.89 million years ago.

The findings emphasize that early modern humans did not evolve in isolation. They are the product of a diverse group of ancestors whose existence persists not just in the archaeological record but in our genetic makeup.

“We often think of human evolution as a branching tree,” Moorjani says in a statement. “But new genomic data and analytical methods reveal a much more interconnected history—more like a complex web of populations connected by repeated episodes of migration and mixing.”

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.