Tooth of an Ancient Girl Fills Gap in Human Family Tree

nytimes ^ | 5/17/2022 | Carl Zimmer

[bitt]

A molar discovered in a cave in Laos shows where the enigmatic Denisovans could have interbred with the ancestors of modern humans.

A tooth found inside of a mountain cave in Laos has solved one of the biggest scientific mysteries of the Denisovans, a branch of ancient humans that disappeared roughly 50,000 years ago.

Since 2010, when Denisovan teeth and finger bones were first discovered, DNA testing has revealed that the enigmatic hominins were among the ancestors of people alive today in Australia and the Pacific.

But scientists didn’t understand how the Denisovans, whose scant remains had been found only in Siberia and Tibet, would have been able to interbreed with the group of humans who expanded east from Africa through Southeast Asia before reaching Australia, New Guinea and other islands in the Pacific.

Now, the discovery of a girl’s molar in Laos, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, puts Denisovans right in the path of modern humans who arrived in Southeast Asia tens of thousands of years later. “We knew that Denisovans should be here,” said Laura Shackelford, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Illinois and a co-author of the new study. “It’s nice to have some tangible evidence of their existence in this area.”

Dr. Shackelford joined a team of French and Laotian colleagues on an expedition to the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos in 2008, and they have been digging up fossils ever since. In one of the many caves that riddle the mountains, they have unearthed human skull fragments dating back about 75,000 years, making them the oldest evidence of modern humans in Southeast Asia.

[TigersEye]

:)

I understand that anthropologists believe Denisovan gals looked like Nina Jankowicz.
That line was doomed!

[Candor7]

Well thats what happens when you believe sex is disinformation!

[TigersEye]

LOL

[The Westerner]

Thanks for explaining what this is about. Interesting stuff.

[SunkenCiv]

• Ancient Tooth Once Belonged to The Mysterious Denisovans, Scientists Think [05/17/2022]