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Molar tooth of a Denisova girl
The discovery of a molar tooth has caused a stir in the archaeological world: the fossil found in a cave in Laos comes from a girl belonging to the prehistoric Denisova species and is 150,000 years old.
The find is a sensation because it proves that the Denisovans also lived in Southeast Asia, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.
So far, indications of their distribution had only been found in Siberia and Tibet.
The tooth in Laos shows that the Denisovans were active in multiple climates and were able to adapt accordingly.
There is also the possibility that the prehistoric species very likely lived in the vicinity of other people, such as the Neanderthals.
The first Denisova man was discovered just a few years ago.
In 2008, Russian researchers found a fragment of a finger bone and teeth from him in southern Siberia.
Since then, scientists have been trying to learn more about prehistoric man.
Denisovans are a distant sister group to Neanderthals.
According to researchers, Denisova split off from the other human populations about two million years ago and evolved independently of them.
While the Neanderthals lived primarily in Europe and western Asia, Denisova people migrated through eastern Asia.
They may have lived in the Central Asian Altai Mountains until about 40,000 years ago.
For context: the Neanderthals died out around 30,000 years ago.
A cave full of extinct mammals
The fact that researchers have so far made so few finds of the mysterious prehistoric man is also due to the fact that fossils keep better in cold, dry conditions than in warm and humid ones.
In 2018, while searching for bones and teeth of the Denisova people, archaeologists led by Laura Shackelford from the University of Illinois came across the cave in northern Laos.
There were a lot of bones there.
They came mainly from mammals such as pigs, deer and pygmy elephants.
But then the researchers also found the molar under the mountain of bones.
This was conspicuous, it quickly became clear that it was a human tooth – but not an ordinary one.
After a comparison in the laboratory, it quickly became clear that the tooth is actually a human one.
However, one cannot draw conclusions about a specific group of people from the chemical composition of the tooth.
It could therefore theoretically also be a tooth from a Neanderthal.
However, the study authors argue that the shape and size of other Denisova fossils is very similar.
The researchers had already suspected that these prehistoric people lived in the area.
But now there is “tangible proof” of this.
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