Mystery humans travelled far
Researchers working in the Southeast Asian country of Laos say they’ve discovered a rare fossil tooth from an extinct human species called the Denisovans. The new find seems to show that this mysterious human species – which is only known from a handful of remains – lived across a much larger area than experts thought.
The discovery was made by an international team of scientists and explorers at a narrow hollow called Cobra Cave, where a local boy had reported seeing bones embedded in the crumbly rock. When French explorer Eric Suzzoni made the first trip into the cave in 2018, he brought out a jumble of animal bones, along with a small molar (a grinding tooth from the back of the mouth) that has a more wrinkled surface than that of a modern human.
Based on the age of the other bones where it was found, the team say the tooth is between 131,000 and 164,000 years old – well before the modern human species, Homo sapiens, reached the area. Using a sample of the tooth’s enamel (outer coating), they extracted chemicals called proteins to confirm that it comes from a human relative rather than an ape such as an orangutan. Together with the tooth’s size and lack of wear, the proteins suggest that it came from a girl between three and eight years of age. The chemical clues can’t directly link the tooth to a particular extinct human species, but it looks like teeth in a jawbone from Tibet, whose discovery was announced in 2019. This jaw belonged to a member of the mysterious Denisovan species that was first found in eastern Russia (see boxout).
The discovery supports the idea that the Denisovans spread across Southeast Asia and learned to live in all sorts of habitats, including cold, high mountains and steamy tropical islands, before they died out around 30,000 years ago. “It kind of makes me think about how similar they are to us,” team member Dr Laura Shackelford told National Geographic magazine. “We’re incredibly flexible – that’s sort of the hallmark of modern humans.”
The team hope that further studies of the tooth could reveal more about its owner’s life, such as her diet and the climate where she grew up. It may even allow them to identify other Denisovan remains that could be sitting unidentified in museums across Asia.