![]() "We have essentially found the 'smoking gun' - this Denisovan tooth shows they were once present this far south in the karst landscapes of Laos," says Associate Professor Morley. This suggested it was most likely a Denisovan who lived between 164,000 -131,000 years ago in the warm tropics of northern Laos.Īssociate Professor Mike Morley from the Microarchaeology Laboratory at Flinders University says the cave site named Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra cave), was found high up in the limestone mountains containing remnants of an old cemented cave sediment packed with fossils. This is in agreement with the genetic evidence found in modern day Southeast Asian populations."įollowing a very detailed analysis of the shape of this tooth, the research team identified many similarities to Denisovan teeth found on the Tibetan Plateau - the only other location that Denisovan fossils have ever been found. "This fossil represents the first discovery of Denisovans in Southeast Asia and shows that Denisovans were in the south at least as far as Laos. "After all this work following the many clues written on fossils from very different geographic areas our findings are significant," Professor Demeter says. Lead Author and Assistant Professor of Palaeoanthropology at the University of Copenhagen, Fabrice Demeter, says the cave sediments contained teeth of giant herbivores, ancient elephants and rhinos that where known to live in woodland environments. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications, led by The University of Copenhagen, the CNRS (France), University of Illinois Urbanna-Champain (USA), the Ministry of Information Culture and Tourism, Laos and supported by microarchaeological work undertaken at Flinders University, and geochronological analyses at Macquarie University and Southern Cross University in Australia. The international researchers are confident the two ancient sites are linked to Denisovans occupations despite being thousands of kilometres apart. The new cave Tam Ngu Hao 2, also known as Cobra Cave, is located near to the famous Tam Pà Ling Cave where another important 70,000-year-old human (Homo sapiens) fossils had been previously found. The research team made the significant discovery during their 2018 excavation campaign in northern Laos. The scientists have shown it originated from the same ancient human population first recognised in Denisova Cave (dubbed the Denisovans), in the Altai Mountains of Siberia (Russia). The human tooth was chanced upon during an archaeological survey in a remote area of Laos. ![]() The answer to this question has been established by an international team of researchers from Laos, Europe, the US and Australia. ![]()
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