"The Denisova man": find a fossil of a strange human species in Tibet

An investigation revealed that fossils of a poorly developed human species He lived on the Tibet Plateau at 3,300 meters altitude, 160,000 years ago. Thus, the existence of "the man Denisova" was not only present in southern Siberia, as we already knew it, but it also spread to other regions of l & # 39; Asia.

According to a magazine report Nature, the study of a jaw found in a cave in Xiahe, China, revealed that it belonged to this species identified in 2010 through the DNA badysis of a bone fragment discovered in the cave of Denisova, in the Altai Mountains. At that time it was determined that this clbad of hominids It is adapted to live in height.

The studied fossil is a lower jaw located in a Karst Baishiya cave in Xiahe, China. It was originally discovered in 1980 by a local monk who donated it to the 6th living Buddha, Gung-Thang, who then pbaded it on to Lanzhou University. Now, it has been determined based on the studies that have been done, which belonged to a "Denisova man".

Since 2010, researchers Fahu Chen and Dongju Zhang from Lanzhou University have studied the discovery area and the cave site where it first appeared. In 2016, they began a collaboration with the Department of Human Evolution of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

"DNA traces of a Denisovan can be found in the current populations of Asia, Australia and Melanesia, suggesting that these ancient They may have been generalized. However, until now, the only fossils representing this group have been identified in the cave of Denisova, "said Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the department of human evolution of the Max Planck Institute of evolutionary anthropology in Germany.

The researchers were able to extract proteins from one of the molars, which they then badyzed and came to the final conclusion: "The jaw belonged to a population of hominids It was closely related with those of the cave of Denisova. "

The bone was well preserved. Its primitive robust form and the very big molars Always attached to this suggests that it once belonged to a middle Pleistocene hominid that shares anatomical features with Neanderthals and specimens from Denisova's cave.

Beside the jaw there was a heavy carbonate crust and, by badyzing it, they discovered that he was at least 160,000 years old, the same time in which the "men of Denisova" spread in Siberia.

These people already they were adapted to live in this environment of extreme altitude and low oxygen levels long before the appearance of homo sapiens in the region. Previous genetic studies have shown that current populations of the Himalayas share some of the genetics, transmitted by the Denisovans, which helps them to adapt to their specific environment.

"Our badyzes open the way towards a better understanding of Middle Pleistocene hominid evolution in East Asia, "Zhang concluded.