UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — Homo erectus fossil yields secrets long thought to be beyond genetics

Q1. Which of the following is regarded as the most anatomically complete skeleton of Homo erectus discovered to date?

  • A. Peking Man (Zhoukoudian)
  • B. Java Man (Trinil)
  • C. Turkana Boy (Nariokotome, Kenya)
  • D. Sangiran 17 (Java)

Q2. In which peer-reviewed scientific journal was the 2026 study reporting the first palaeoproteomic evidence of interbreeding between Homo erectus and Denisovans published?

  • A. Science
  • B. Nature
  • C. Cell
  • D. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Q3. Consider the following pairings of hominin fossil sites with their locations: 1. Zhoukoudian — China 2. Denisova Cave — Altai Mountains, Russia 3. Nariokotome (Turkana Boy site) — Ethiopia 4. Sangiran — Indonesia Which of the pairings given above is/are NOT correctly matched?

  1. Zhoukoudian — China
  2. Denisova Cave — Altai Mountains, Russia
  3. Nariokotome (Turkana Boy site) — Ethiopia
  4. Sangiran — Indonesia
  • A. 3 only
  • B. 2 and 3
  • C. 1 and 4
  • D. 3 and 4

Q4. The Denisovan genome — against which the 2026 Homo erectus enamel-protein evidence has been compared — was first reported to science in which year, based on DNA extracted from a finger-bone fossil from Denisova Cave?

  • A. 2003
  • B. 2008
  • C. 2010
  • D. 2014

Q5. In the context of the 2026 Homo erectus discovery, the term 'palaeoproteomics' most accurately refers to:

  • A. Sequencing of ancient mitochondrial DNA recovered from fossilised bone
  • B. Radiometric dating of fossils based on the decay rate of structural proteins
  • C. Analysis of ancient protein sequences (such as tooth-enamel proteins) preserved in fossils to infer evolutionary relationships
  • D. Imaging of fossilised soft tissues using high-resolution electron microscopy