Denisovans Were First To Adapt To High Altitude And Harsh Conditions Of Tibetan Plateau

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - Denisovans occupied the Tibetan Plateau in the Middle Pleistocene and successfully adapted to high-altitude low-oxygen environments long before the regional arrival of modern Homo sapiens, a new study shows.

So far Denisovans were only known from a small collection of fossil fragments from Denisova Cave in Siberia.

The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980 in Baishiya Karst Cave.© Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University

A research team from Lanzhou University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, used ancient protein analysis and found  that the mandible’s owner belonged to a population that was closely related to the Denisovans from Siberia, and occupied the Tibetan Plateau in the Middle Pleistocene.

Denisovans – an extinct sister group of Neandertals - were discovered in 2010, and then, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) sequenced the genome of a fossil finger bone found at Denisova Cave in Russia and showed that it belonged to a hominin group that was genetically distinct from Neandertals.

"Traces of Denisovan DNA are found in present-day Asian, Australian and Melanesian populations, suggesting that these ancient hominins may have once been widespread," Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the Department of Human Evolution at the MPI-EVA, says in a press release.

"Yet so far the only fossils representing this ancient hominin group were identified at Denisova Cave."

The cave is facing southeast and about 40 meters (131 feet) above the modern Jiangla riverbed, which is located in front of it. © Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University

In their recent study, the researchers focus on a hominin lower mandible that was found on the Tibetan Plateau in Baishiya Karst Cave in Xiahe, China. The fossil was originally discovered in 1980 by a local monk who donated it to the 6th Gung-Thang Living Buddha who then passed it on to Lanzhou University.

While the researchers could not find any traces of DNA preserved in this fossil, they managed to extract proteins from one of the molars, which they then analysed applying ancient protein analysis.

"The ancient proteins in the mandible are highly degraded and clearly distinguishable from modern proteins that may contaminate a sample," says Frido Welker of the MPI-EVA and the University of Copenhagen. "Our protein analysis shows that the Xiahe mandible belonged to a hominin population that was closely related to the Denisovans from Denisova Cave."

See also:

Denisovan Family Tree: New Branches Revealed In Ancient DNA

Enigmatic Denisovans Interbred With Modern Humans More Than Once

Mysterious Ancient Human ‘Ghost’ Species Discovered With Help Of Saliva

Denisovan DNA Detected In Modern South Asians – UCLA Scientists Reveal

Mysterious Archaic Cavemen – Denisovans – Were Relatives To Neanderthals And Humans

Partial Skull Fossils Found In China Could Be A New Species -‘A Kind Of Unknown Or New Archaic Human’, Researcher Says

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The researchers found the mandible to be well-preserved. Its robust primitive shape and the very large molars still attached to it suggest that this mandible once belonged to a Middle Pleistocene hominin sharing anatomical features with Neanderthals and specimens from the Denisova Cave. Attached to the mandible was a heavy carbonate crust, and by applying U-series dating to the crust the researchers found that the Xiahe mandible is at least 160,000 years old.

"The Xiahe mandible likely represents the earliest hominin fossil on the Tibetan Plateau," says Fahu Chen, director of the Institute of Tibetan Research, CAS.

"These people had already adapted to living in this high-altitude low-oxygen environment long before Homo sapiens even arrived in the region. Previous genetic studies found present-day Himalayan populations to carry the EPAS1 allele in their genome, passed on to them by Denisovans, which helps them to adapt to their specific environment.

"Archaic hominins occupied the Tibetan Plateau in the Middle Pleistocene and successfully adapted to high-altitude low-oxygen environments long before the regional arrival of modern Homo sapiens," says Dongju Zhang. According to Hublin, similarities with other Chinese specimens confirm the presence of Denisovans among the current Asian fossil record.

"Our analyses pave the way towards a better understanding of the evolutionary history of Middle Pleistocene hominins in East Asia."

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Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer