IN THEIR DEFENSE, IT WAS AN AWESOMELY HOT UNKNOWN SPECIES: Ancient Humans Bred with Completely Unknown Species. “A new study presented to the Royal Society meeting on ancient DNA in London last week has revealed a dramatic finding – the genome of one of our ancient ancestors, the Denisovans, contains a segment of DNA that seems to have come from another species that is currently unknown to science. The discovery suggests that there was rampant interbreeding between ancient human species in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago. But, far more significant was the finding that they also mated with a mystery species from Asia – one that is neither human nor Neanderthal.”

Plus: “What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world – that there were many hominid populations.”