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Ancient Siberian cave hosted Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans—possibly at the same time - Science Magazine
Jun 23, 2021 1 min, 51 secs

In Siberia, researchers lay out a grid in Denisova Cave to systematically sample soil layers for DNA.

A decade ago, anthropologists shocked the world when they discovered a fossil pinkie bone from a then-unknown group of extinct humans in Siberia’s Denisova Cave.

Humans—including Neanderthals and Denisovans—are known to have occupied Denisova Cave for at least 300,000 years.

Those artifacts, extensive studies of DNA from these bones, and even one early study of DNA from soils have cemented the cave’s importance for piecing together human evolution.

But eight fossils are not much to go on, so Elena Zavala, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and colleagues teamed up with Russian researchers to see what kind of DNA was present in the soils of the three-chamber cave (see video, below).

Researchers have been studying DNA isolated from soils for more than 40 years, including sequencing DNA from permafrost, but only in the past 4 years has anyone found DNA from extinct humans in ancient soils.

Working with another team of experts who had previously dated the layers of the cave, the researchers dug out 728 soil samples.

After 2 years of analysis, in which they isolated and sequenced the samples, the researchers found human DNA in 175 of them.

The data reveal a complex history of human and animal habitation, with different groups moving in and out of the cave over time, Zavala and her colleagues report today in Nature.

Their work confirms that Denisovans were the cave’s first human inhabitants, about 300,000 years ago.

They disappeared 130,000 years ago, only to be followed by a different group of Denisovans, who likely made many of the stone tools, some 30,000 years later.

Neanderthals appeared on the scene about 170,000 years ago, with different groups using the cave at various points in time, some overlapping with the Denisovans.

The soil layer that corresponds with that period contained DNA from all three human groups, the researchers report.

About 170,000 years ago, the climate went from warmer to colder, and Neanderthals moved in, so did different species of hyenas and bears.

It’s the combination of genomic data from both the fossils and the soil samples that really makes the new work stand out, Pinhasi says.

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