Another sensation by anthropologists – ancestors found the girls from “Denisovskaya” cave – RSUTE

Scientists have found traces of the Altai “third kind” of people – the ancestors’ denisovtsev. ” They could live in the vicinity of Denisov cave about 100 thousand years ago.

The results of the DNA testing of the remains of the girl found in Denisova Cave (Soloneshensky District of the Altai Territory). Conclusions: The girl lived 50 thousand. Years ago, reports Science News. Scientists say that the ancestors of the girls lived in a cave has 110 thousand. Years ago.

The study progressed through the use of a new method of thermoluminescent dating, which helped establish the age of a thin strip of sandstone (the so-called “layer number 11″), in who found the fossils.

Research sandstone called “layer №11″, in which the fossils were found and the girl, later named “denisovan”, were carried out using the radiocarbon method. They showed that the girl lived in this place about 45-50 thousand years ago.

However, the genetic analysis of other finds of human remains in older layers of the cave proved that it was inhabited by at least 100 thousand years earlier than expected.

Recently, in a cave found three teeth “denisovtsev” containing a large enough amount of DNA. After the restoration of the genomes of their owners – one woman and two men – a team Paabo was able to calculate their age in the number of small mutations in each of the DNA samples.

In December 2010, the famous paleogenetics Svante Paabo said the opening of the “third” type people whose remains have been found in Russia’s Denisova Cave in the Altai. This discovery was made thanks to the “resurrection” of the genome fragments, preserved in three fragments of bones of ancient people – metacarpophalangeal finger bones and two teeth found in the cave. As originally thought, scientists found they “denisovtsy” were cousins ​​the Neanderthals, who lived in a cave about 50 thousand years ago.

As said paleoanthropologist Vivian Elephant (Vivien Slon) of the Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) estimate of the lifetime denisovtsev is a very rough and inaccurate because of problems with dating, which experienced scientists in the study of the remains of animals, people and tools from the Denisova Cave. Estimates vary from very small numbers – about 30 thousand years for a number of bones of those layers where the remains were found “denisovtsev” and up to 170 thousand years, calculated using radioisotope methods.

Such discrepancies forced Paabo and his colleagues, including Academician Anatoly Derevianko and Michael Shunkova from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, calculate the age denisovtsev using genetic methods.

Denisova Cave Valley Anouilh Altai has been home to humans for more than 200 thousand years. The ancestors of modern humans lived there all the Paleolithic era, which ended 12,000 years ago.