This discovery suggests human relatives called Denisovans lived in the highest altitudes 100,000 years or more before modern humans.
The right half of an ancient Denisovan mandible found in a cave on the Tibetan Plateau at more than 10,000 feet. By Ben Guarino Ben Guarino Reporter covering the practice and culture of science Email Bio Follow May 1 at 1:00 PM Four decades ago, a monk came to pray at a limestone cave two miles above sea level in the Tibetan Plateau. There the monk found half of a human mandible.
This particular Denisovan had a big chin. “This mandible is larger than my mandible, and very likely your mandible. It’s a robust mandible, no question,” Hublin said. One molar is not fully erupted, suggesting the Denisovan died while still growing. This discovery supports previous evidence that Denisovan DNA helped modern people thrive in the thin air of high altitudes. Certain Denisovan variants, such as a gene that allows the blood’s proteins to use oxygen more efficiently, are found in Sherpas and other people who live in the highest climates of Asia. The jaw’s owner, and his or her relatives, must have adapted to this harsh environment — otherwise, Hublin said, they would have swiftly died out.
Denisovan and Neanderthals share a lineage that branched off from the ancestor of modern humans about 700,000 years ago. The two sister species then split apart about 300,000 years later. It’s unclear when or why the Denisovans vanished, but a recent genomic analysis suggests they had children with modern humans as recently as 15,000 years ago.
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