The Controversy Surrounding the Discovery of a Mysterious Hominid Jaw by Taiwanese Fishermen

In view of the two jaws discovered until then, the man of Denisova was obviously endowed with enormous teeth.

A denial, or man of Denisova is a human subspecies which has been discovered “thanks to the study of DNA of a fragment of a phalanx of the hand”Discovered in a cave in Siberia, according to an article from the Universal Encyclopedia. It was obviously contemporary with Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Denisova man, a subject of controversy within the scientific community

According to the article, he often receives controversial nickname of “third men”, and genetic exchanges have been proven “Between Denisovians and Neanderthals, and between Denisovians and ancestors of certain current human populations“Consequently, its status is much discussed and is still very mysterious today.

“” “Of a tooth or a small fragment of bone, the mystery of their appearance remains ”, Explain to the Guardian Professor Enrico Cappellini, of the University of Copenhagen, the main co-author of the article. This jaw is not the first known to specialists: another was discovered on a high plateau in Tibet. Both are prominent and equipped with huge teeth.

For Enrico Cappellini, the ideal would be to have the skull or the rest of the skeleton in addition to the jaw, to have a better idea of ​​what Denisova man looked like. However, “We now have a more precise image”Of his physique.

Learn more about this mysterious hominid group

According to the estimates of archaeologists, the fossil could date between 10,000 and 70,000 years or between 130,000 and 190,000 years, which corresponds to one of the two glacial periods where the channel in which the fossil was found was above sea level.

The geographic areas where the fossils of the Denisova man are found allow additional information concerning his adaptability. “” “The cold of Siberia, the high altitude of Tibet. We cannot deduce anything from their cognitive capacities … but they had the capacity to adapt to very diverse environments ”, explains Enrico Cappellini.

For Professor Chris Stringer, a leader in research on human origins at the London Natural History Museum, who did not participate in the latest research, the man of Denisova had an environmental distribution area even larger than Neanderthals, “going from cold and open environments from North Asia to the subtropical forests of South-East”.

Hopefully additional fossil discoveries will further enlighten what has happened to this hominid group.