No evidence for unknown archaic ancestry in South Asia

Abstract

Genomic studies have documented a contribution of archaic Neanderthals and Denisovans to non-Africans. Recently, Mondal et al. 2016 (Nature Genetics, doi:10.1038/ng.3621) published a major dataset--the largest whole genome sequencing study of diverse South Asians to date--including 60 mainland groups and 10 indigenous Andamanese. They reported analyses claiming that nearly all South Asians harbor ancestry from an unknown archaic human population that is neither Neanderthal nor Denisovan. However, the statistics cited in support of this conclusion do not replicate in other data sets, and in fact contradict the conclusion.