- cross-posted to:
- interestingshare
- cross-posted to:
- interestingshare
Researchers have found fresh evidence that may connect the mysterious Denisovans to the early human species Homo longi
They remain one of the most elusive groups of humans to have walked on earth. Evidence from the DNA traces left by Denisovans shows they lived on the Tibetan plateau, probably travelled to the Philippines and Laos in south Asia and might have made their way to northern China more than 100,000 years ago. They also interbred with modern humans.
What Denisovans looked like or how they lived has remained a mystery, however. Only a jaw fragment, a few bits of bone and one or two teeth provide any evidence of their physical characteristics.
Their DNA, which was first found in samples from the Denisova cave in Siberia in 2010, provides most of our information about their existence.
But recently scientists have pinpointed a strong candidate for the species to which the Denisovans might have belonged. This is Homo longi – or “Dragon man” – from Harbin in north-east China. This key fossil is made up of an almost complete skull with a braincase as big as a modern human’s and a flat face with delicate cheekbones. Dating suggests it is at least 150,000 years old.
So this is just saying Denisovans and Homo Longi are the same species.
We have fossils from one, and DNA from the other.
But it’s not like these different homnoid species were completely isolated. There wasn’t really anything stopping them from interbreeding when they ran across each other.
I’m not even fully onboard with calling them different species. They were just all hominids.
Like, a Golden Retriever and a Brown Labrador are different types of dogs, but throw a bunch in the same area and a couple decades later they’re completely commingled.
You can’t take a banana out of banana bread after you bake it.
And with the small amounts of recoverable DNA, it’s hard to tell if we found a banana or just a piece that fell out of a slice of banana bread.