An old dredged jaw from the Taiwanese seabed has revealed new perspectives on the appearance and geographic range of scanning of an enigmatic human species called Denisovans.
The fossil was discovered by fishermen who travel the Penghu canal off Taiwan and is considered the most complete fossil that has been genetically identified as Denisovan. The male individual, who lived at least 10,000 years ago, had a strong jaw and very large powerful molars.
“According to a tooth or a small fragment of bone, there is the mystery of their appearance,” said Professor Enrico Cappellini, of the University of Copenhagen, an author co-privée on the newspaper. A Denisovan jaw discovered in Tibet had started to fill this image, and the last discovery adds to the proof of a prominent jaw with huge teeth.
“Now we have a richer image,” said Cappellini. “Of course, it would be good to have a skull and the rest of the skeleton, but it’s a step forward.”
The fossil is dated one of the two glacial periods where the canal is known to be above sea level, between 10,000 and 70,000 years, between 130,000 and 190,000 years.
Scientists were unable to obtain DNA from the sample but managed to extract proteins, which could be sequenced and used to place the fossil with confidence on the Denisovan branch of the scalable tree.
The discovery reveals an impressive geographic range for ancient species, which lived at the same time as – and maintain – modern humans and Neanderthals.
Denisovan’s first fossils, identified by ancient Ancient DNA analysis, came from a cave in Siberia and just included a finger fragment and some teeth. Since then, other discoveries have shown that Denisovans have also resisted the incredibly hard conditions of the Tibetan plateau at high altitude, where temperatures can dive at -30C. On the other hand, in Southeast Asia, they would have lived alongside the buffaloes of water in a mild climate.
“These are climatic and environmental conditions that are very different,” said Cappellini. “The cold environment in Siberia, high altitude in Tibet. We can not deduce anything from their cognitive capacities … but they had the capacity to adapt to fairly diverse environments. ”
Professor Chris Stringer, a leader in research on human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved in the latest research, said that the last discovery had also strengthened the case that Denisovans belongs to a group called Homo LongiOr Dragon Man, whose complete skull was uncovered in Harbin in northeast China.
“It is now obvious that Denisovans must have a wider environmental range than Neanderthals, cold and open environments in Northern Asia with subtropical woods in Southeast Asia,” he said. “A question for the future will be whether we will end up calling Homo Longi Denisovan where we end up calling denisovans Homo Longi. “”
The results are published in the journal Science.
