The history of the settlement of Denisova cave was restored by DNA analysis
An international group of scientists, after DNA analysis, was able to reconstruct the history of the settlement of Denisova Cave. Experts from Germany, Australia, Israel and Russia participated in the scientific work, reports Nature .
Denisova Cave is located in the south of Siberia. It is known as the habitat of the ancient hominids. There they found the remains of the Denisovites – extinct archaic people about whom very little is known. The bones of the Neanderthals have been preserved nearby.
But the remains are too few in number to be judged on the settlement of the cave. The authors of the new scientific work used a different method. They collected samples of sediments, the oldest of which was 300 thousand years old, and the “youngest” – 20 thousand years old.
DNA from humans and animals was extracted from the sediments. The analysis showed that the Denisovans were the first to appear in the cave, and this happened 170-350 thousand years ago. Neanderthals came much later.
About 130 thousand years ago, the tears of Denis's DNA disappeared from the cave, and 100 thousand years ago they appeared again. But this was a different population with excellent mitochondrial DNA. Modern people appeared in this region 45 thousand years ago.
Previously, scientists determined that Neanderthals survived two waves of migration. This was also indicated by genetic analysis.
