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Ancient southern Africans took genetic evolution in a new direction

Their DNA is more varied than modern humans, including gene tweaks enhancing sun protection

An ancient skull on display in a museum against a black background

Ancient southern Africans, represented here by a skull dating to between about 82,000 and 170,000 years ago, evolved a unique set of gene variants over the past several hundred thousand years, an ancient DNA study finds.

Wapondaponda / Wikimedia Commons

By Bruce Bower

This is a human-written story voiced by AI.