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Denisova cave, some 150 km (93 mi) south of the city of Barnaul, is the only source of Denisovan's remains. Pictures: The Siberian Times

Extinct Denisovans from Siberia Made Stunning Jewelry. Did They Also Discover Australia?

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By Siberia Times Reporter, Olga Gertcyk

The distance from the only currently known home of the Denisovans in Altai region to the nearest point of Australia is roughly akin to the length of the Trans-Siberian railway, and yet it is looking increasingly likely that these ancient species of humanoids somehow made this epic journey deep in pre-history, perhaps 65,000 years ago.

Separate evidence from the Denisova cave in southern Siberia certainly shows they had myriad talents at least 50,000 years ago, even if their ultimate fate was extinction. 

Yet remarkably their DNA lives on in the Aboriginal people of Australia and the Melanesians of Papua New Guinea to a far greater extent than in any other modern-day populations worldwide.

Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts (left) and Dr Maxim Kozlikin (right) in Denisova cave. Picture: Richard Roberts

Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts (left) and Dr Maxim Kozlikin (right) in Denisova cave. Picture: Richard Roberts

Moreover, on their way towards Australasia, they appear to have interbred sufficiently with other early humans to have provided Tibetans with the EPAS1 gene that enables them to survive in high-altitude low oxygen environments.

The Denisovans influenced not only Aboriginal people (up), but also modern Tibetans (bottom). Pictures: Steve Evans, Dr. Ruediger Wenzel
The Denisovans influenced not only Aboriginal people (up), but also modern Tibetans (bottom). Pictures: Steve Evans, Dr. Ruediger Wenzel

The Denisovans influenced not only Aboriginal people (up), but also modern Tibetans (bottom). Pictures: Steve Evans, Dr. Ruediger Wenzel

Pictures shown here illustrate their remarkable Paleolithic handiwork from artifacts - for example a stunning green-hued chlorite bracelet, a marble ring, and beads from an ostrich eggshell necklace, all at least 50,000 years old, but possibly soon to be revealed by scientists as significantly older -  found in a cave they shared variously with Neaderthals and Homo sapiens.

Jewelry from Paleolithic era at least 50,000 years old (The Siberian Times)

Jewelry from Paleolithic era at least 50,000 years old (The Siberian Times)

Now Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts, director of the Centre for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong, has urged deep study of ancient migration routes to understand how the Denisovan DNA exists to this day in the native people of Australia. 

Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts in his laboratory in the Centre for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong. Picture: Richard Roberts

Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts in his laboratory in the Centre for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong. Picture: Richard Roberts

'Many of ancient people's migration routes went through the territory of Russia, via the Altai mountains,' he told gazeta.ru. 'If we don't get to the bottom of what happened regarding human evolution in Altai, we will never understand evolution in say, China. 

'The first migration wave of Homo erectus left Africa about two million years ago, moving in two main directions: via the Middle East to the south of Europe, the Caucasus, to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, and through the western areas of Asia. 

'To the east they most likely moved via two routes as well. One must have gone south of Himalayas and Tibet via Indostan to Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. The other, Northern one, most likely went via Central Asia and Siberia. 

'Perhaps two of these streams met at some point. We will learn it by meticulous dating of all finds... To me personally the most interesting question is how 4% of Denisovan' DNA got into the Aboriginal people? Look where Australia is, and where Altai is! How is it possible?!'

The distance as the crow flies is some 8,500 kilometers (5282 mi), and doubtless any such Denisovan migration happened over multiple generations and many millennia - yet there is also the question of a treacherous sea crossing long before boats or rafts were known to have been invented, even if sea levels then were 110 meters (361 ft) lower than today because of the Ice Age. 

People first came to Australia some 65,000 years ago, but who were they, and how did they cross the so-called Wallace's Line separating Asia from Australia, which at the time involved eight separate sea crossings? 

The distance between the Denisova cave and Australia as the crow flies is some 8,500 kilometers. Picture: The Siberian Times

The distance between the Denisova cave and Australia as the crow flies is some 8,500 kilometers. Picture: The Siberian Times

'That's a very interesting and controversial question,' said Prof Roberts, a regular visitor to Russia, whose pioneering dating methods are being used to fix the Denisovans in time. 

'We assume they were modern humans, that is members of our species, Homo sapiens, because we have no evidence to the contrary. 

'We don't have any fossil remains of the humans, we have only the stone tools left behind, pigments, ochres, all the other attributes that are very typical of what modern humans use whenever they arrive somewhere,' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

People first came to Australia some 65,000 years ago, but who were they, and how did they cross the so-called Wallace's Line separating Asia from Australia, which at the time involved eight separate sea crossings? Picture: Maximilian Doerrbecker

'And it came with the whole kit and caboodle. All these sites come with the sorts of things we imagine modern humans are using to make all the symbolic things we associate with ourselves.’

'But the reality is we don't actually know who were the first people into Australia by species.'

He cannot rule out Denisovans, he said, because of the presence of their DNA in Aboriginal people. 

'We know that Aboriginal people in Australia contain both Neanderthal DNA, as do you and I, we have Neanderthal DNA, but neither you nor I have Denisovan DNA, which is another group of people actually the home base, as it were, up in Siberia, Denisova Cave in southern Siberia in Russia.’

Handiwork made of bones and teeth, find in 11th layer of Denisova cave. Pictures: Anatoly Derevyanko, The Siberian Times
Handiwork made of bones and teeth, find in 11th layer of Denisova cave. Pictures: Anatoly Derevyanko, The Siberian Times

Handiwork made of bones and teeth, find in 11th layer of Denisova cave. Pictures: Anatoly Derevyanko, The Siberian Times

'But it's miraculously in Aboriginal people at the present day in much greater quantities than any other people around the world. How did it get into Aboriginal people? That's still very much a moot point and we're not sure. Did Denisovan people themselves make it across Wallace's Line, a big biogeographic boundary separating Asia from Australasia? We don't know. These are very much still questions that we want to get a handle on, so who were the first people into Australia? We still think it's modern humans but perhaps it might have been Denisovans. It's a question mark still hanging there.'

World oldest needle found in Denisova cave. Picture: Mikhail Shunkov, Vesti

World oldest needle found in Denisova cave. Picture: Mikhail Shunkov, Vesti

Scientists Professor Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in the UK, have already suggested in a Science opinion article that this is precisely what happened. 

'In mainland Asia, neither ancient human specimens, nor geographically isolated modern Indigenous populations have Denisovan DNA of any note, indicating that there has never been a genetic signal of Denisovan interbreeding in the area,' said Professor Cooper, Director of the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. 

'The only place where such a genetic signal exists appears to be in areas east of Wallace's Line and that is where we think interbreeding took place - even though it means that the Denisovans must have somehow made that marine crossing.'

Denisovan necklaces and pendants. Pictures: Mikhail Shunkov, The Siberian Times
Denisovan necklaces and pendants. Pictures: Mikhail Shunkov, The Siberian Times

Denisovan necklaces and pendants. Pictures: Mikhail Shunkov, The Siberian Times

Prof Stringer said: 'The recent discovery of another enigmatic ancient human species Homo floresiensis, the so-called Hobbits, in Flores, Indonesia, confirms that the diversity of archaic human relatives in this area was much higher than we'd thought...

'The morphology of the Hobbits shows they are different from the Denisovans, meaning we now have at least two, and potentially more, unexpected groups in the area.

'The conclusions we've drawn are very important for our knowledge of early human evolution and culture. Knowing that the Denisovans spread beyond this significant sea barrier opens up all sorts of questions about the behaviors and capabilities of this group, and how far they could have spread.'

For him 'the key questions now are where and when the ancestors of current humans, who were on their way to colonize New Guinea and Australia around 50,000 years ago, met and interacted with the Denisovans.

Marble ring found in the cave. Picture: Scientific Russia

Marble ring found in the cave. Picture: Scientific Russia

'Intriguingly, the genetic data suggest that male Denisovans interbred with modern human females, indicating the potential nature of the interactions as small numbers of modern humans first crossed Wallace's Line and entered Denisovan territory.'

The Denisovans also influenced modern Tibetans, according to Rasmus Nielsen, a faculty member of the Center for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics, at Berkeley, University of California. 

He investigated how Tibetans can withstand the effects of hypoxia in low-oxygen environments. Seven years ago, his team published a paper indicating the EPAS1 gene was the cause of this this beneficial mutation. 

The gene regulates the body's reaction to low oxygen environments, allowing Tibetans to produce fewer red blood cells and less hemoglobin, it was reported. 

Yet it did not originate from Neanderthals but there was an exact match with Denisovans. 

Back in Denisova cave, some 150 km (93 mi) south of the city of Barnaul, finds like the bracelet, a ring, and beads as well as the world's oldest needle, were all made in layers of this underground complex identified as being occupied by Denisovans, after tiny fragments of these archaic humans were found and analysed. 

A stunning green-hued chlorite bracelet, found in 2008 in a layer that contained remains of Denisovans. Pictures: Anastasia Abdulmanova, Konstantin Tynayev

A stunning green-hued chlorite bracelet, found in 2008 in a layer that contained remains of Denisovans. Pictures: Anastasia Abdulmanova, Konstantin Tynayev

Initially this jewellery and other artifacts was dated as being between 40,000 and 50,000 years old, with the latter currently the officially accepted figure. 

Now, however, as previously disclosed by The Siberian Times, scientists from Russia, the UK and Australia are reexamining the dates of these objects amid suspicions that they are as old as 65,000 to 70,000 years. 

At 50,000 years the know-how involved in these items - the bracelet has a hole made by drilling and rasping devices - are already breathtaking. Any older, and it challenges our entire understanding of the technological development of man. 

Russian scientists say the bracelet was found in 2008 in a layer that contained remains of Denisovans (homo altaiensis) rather than Homo sapiens or Neanderthals, although all these groupings shared the cave at various times, and interbred. 

'The bracelet is stunning - in bright sunlight it reflects the sun rays, at night by the fire it casts a deep shade of green,' said Professor Anatoly Derevyanko, former director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, in Novosibirsk.

Denisova cave, some 150 km (93 mi) south of the city of Barnaul, is the only source of Denisovan's remains. Pictures: The Siberian Times

Denisova cave, some 150 km (93 mi) south of the city of Barnaul, is the only source of Denisovan's remains. Pictures: The Siberian Times

'It is unlikely it was used as an everyday jewelry piece. I believe this beautiful and very fragile bracelet was worn only for some exceptional moments," he said.

The manufacturing technology used in the bracelet is seen as being more typical of a later period, for example the Neolithic era, which began around 12,000 years ago.

His successor Professor Mikhail Shunkov has suggested that the long-extinct Denisovans were significantly more advanced than Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

Did this technological superiority also help them reach Australia before anyone else? 

Top image: Denisova cave, some 150 km (93 mi) south of the city of Barnaul, is the only source of Denisovan's remains. Pictures: The Siberian Times

This article was originally published under the title Extinct Denisovans from Siberia made stunning jewellery - but did they also discover Australia?’  and originally appeared on The Siberian Times and has been republished with permission. 

 

Comments

Knowing our track record for settling disagreements and asserting power and wealth, the chances of these two very different humanoid tribes existing together are slim to none. Over several hundred thousand years, this prime real estate property was probably the site of episodic and savage wars over who would occupy the cave, with the life or death of the losers hanging in the balance. The history of our world conflicts over the past hundred, or thousand, years reveals powerful territorial tendencies that are usually only temporarily settled by brutal warfare. This amazing cave would have been the center of the universe for every tribe in the area, offering safety and warm shelter for whichever tribe won the last battle. Living in blissful harmony with “other” human-like creatures that don’t look, speak, or even think like your tribe would not be a likely scenario.

It is only an assumption that, because the first Denisovan finds were in Altai, that that was their "home base". They could just have easily migrated from Australia. As yet we do not have enough information. I await further discoveries

I think it is a very intriguing puzzle of which we have only a few pieces. It is probably like the ocean, much deeper than we thought and with more life forms than we can imagine. How many hominids and civilizations have occupied the earth? Anyone's guess at this point. The earth is relatively huge and we are only scratching the surface. There's also the problem of politics in any field. The experts in the field can't wander too far away from the official narrative because it can make their sponsors look foolish. But, in the information age we live in, it is becoming harder to keep these secrets. Still, relatively few people can read between the lines like you are doing Frances. And I see what you are saying: they found "artifacts" from an earlier civilization, kept it and used it as their own. Then we find it in the same layer as their bones and think they made it. See, this kind of explanation wrecks their timelines even more. A field expert would never officially propose that explanation, even if they think it possible. Us, as laymen and women, can afford to think and say whatever we want in this comments section.

The bracelet is extraordinary, is it possible that it is something they found that may originate from a far earlier period? I do feel that multiple advanced civilizations have come and gone any number of times on earth.Just a thought.

Perhaps they were able to move to Australia because with the lower sea levels they could just walk?

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