Discovery of ancient human DNA in Southeast Asia 'exceptionally rare,' scientists say

Scientists have made an "exciting" discovery of ancient human DNA that will allow them to piece together a puzzle of ancestry in the region.

Scientists have made an "exciting" discovery of ancient human DNA that they say will allow them to piece together the mysterious ancestry of the people in Southeast Asia. Little is known about the population history of modern humans in Southeast Asia because ancient DNA is easily degraded due to the tropical climate, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature Genetics. In 2015, scientists excavated a partially preserved human skeleton in a limestone cave in Leang Panninge on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, an "exceptionally rare" find in the area because the humid climate is "exceptionally unforgiving" on the preservation of genetic material once the organism dies, Adam Brumm, a professor of archaeology at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and one of the authors of the study, told ABC News. Analysis of the DNA revealed that the body belonged to a young female hunter-gatherer, about 17 or 18 years old, during the pre-Neolithic era, according to the study. She shares half of her DNA with Aboriginal Australians and the other half with the people found in Papua New Guinea, Brumm said.