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by Ashley Cowie June 23, 2021 from Principia-Scientific Website
The entrance to the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia where the so-called new "Denisova Cave DNA" has proven, for the first time, the Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens occupied the same cave at the same time sometimes! Source: Professor Richard G. Roberts University of Wollongong
The existence of this ancient group is suggested by the genetic analysis of Denisovan (pictured, artist's impression) and Neanderthal remains, along with modern human genomes.
But what was completely unexpected is that the new dating suggests the ancestors of modern humans lived,
Researchers Zenobia Jacobs, Bo Li and Kieran O'Gorman collecting soil samples in the main chamber to test for Denisova Cave DNA. (Professor Richard G. Roberts / University of Wollongong)
The cave comprises 20
layers of excavated artifacts indicating occupation by hominins as
long ago as 280,000 years before the present, and
signs of habitation have been found all the way into the Middle
Ages. Up until recently, according to Britannica encyclopedia, researchers have suspected that the cave was inhabited by early modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis).
However, evidence of a
previously unknown group of hominins,
the Denisovans, who were neither
modern humans nor Neanderthals, was also discovered at the site.
Researchers Zenobia Jacobs, Bo Li and Kieran O'Gorman in the south chamber of the cave taking sediment sample as they search for more Denisova Cave DNA. (Professor Richard G. Roberts / University of Wollongong)
The research study's lead author, Dr Elena Zavala, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and her colleagues worked with a team of Russian DNA researchers.
The primary goal was to
test the soil floor of the three-chamber cave to try and gain a
clearer picture of how and when modern humans, Neanderthals and
Denisovans lived in the now famous Denisova Cave.
However, according to an
article (Neandertal
and Denisovan DNA from Pleistocene sediments) about the new research in Science Mag, only over the
last 4 years has anyone found DNA from extinct humans in the ancient
cave soil.
found in Russia's famous Denisova Cave in 2000. (Thilo Parg / CC BY-SA 3.0)
And now, after almost 24 months, the researchers have published new research about their discovery of,
An article about the paper (Pleistocene sediment DNA from Denisova Cave) published by the Max Planck Institute quotes Dr Katerina Douka, an archaeological scientist at the institute who said the new study represents the,
The study concludes that the three different groups,
However, Dr. Zavala's work confirms that Denisovans were the cave's first inhabitants about 300,000 years ago and that they disappeared 130,000 years ago.
A different group of Denisovans who "likely made many of the stone tools," then moved into the cave shelter about 30,000 years later.
It would be 170,000 years
after the first inhabitants that Neanderthals used the cave, at
times, "overlapping with the Denisovans," and the first humans used
the cave beginning around 45,000 years ago.
A reconstructed fossil skeleton of a cave hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea). Cave hyena bones were also found in the Denisova Cave, and this must have resulted in horrible attacks on the hominins living there. (Muséum de Toulouse / CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Denisova Cave DNA covered all three human groups, and the researchers wrote in their paper that the time periods represented by each soil layer "are quite large."
According to Dr. Zavala,
The fossils of many ancient animals were also discovered in the cave which corresponded with times the climate became cooler.
Over time, many different
species of hyenas and bears use the cave to shelter
from the harsh Russian winters, and it was for this reason it is
known locally in Altay as "Aju-Tasch" or "bear rock."
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