How is Denisovan man different from Homo sapiens? Neanderthals, Denisovans and other people Who found this needle

MOSCOW, November 1 - RIA Novosti. Residents of the countries of Southeast Asia and the southern part of China received the most genes from the Denisovans, who separated from the common tree of humanity 400-800 thousand years ago, compared to other people, Swedish paleontologists report in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Russian and European archaeologists under the leadership of the German scientist Svante Paabo in 2010 discovered remains that inhabited Southern Siberia and Central Asia. This type of human ancestor coexisted with Neanderthals and the forerunners modern people.

In December 2010, the researchers who made the discovery reconstructed the genome of these people and compared it with the DNA of modern humans and Neanderthals. They found that “Denisovan man” most “inherited” the genomes of modern Polynesians and inhabitants of some islands of the Malay Archipelago. In August 2011, scientists led by Peter Parham from Stanford University in the USA found that Denisovans and Neanderthals passed on genes responsible for the functioning of the immune system to the ancestors of modern Europeans.

Scientists Pontus Skoglund and Mattias Jakobsson from Uppsala University (Sweden) compared the genomes of modern people with the recovered DNA of ancient people and built several computer models describing the path of migration of the ancestors of modern humans and their encounters with the Denisovans.

Swedish scientists have suggested that even the lightest genetic “traces” of Denisovans can be detected by tracking single-nucleotide polymorphisms - differences in DNA of one “letter”-nucleotide - in the genomes of modern Asians and in the recovered DNA of “cavemen”.

As a result of the comparison, two blocks of data were obtained, one of which contained information about the similarities between modern and “Denisovan” humans, and the second contained matching regions in the genomes of Neanderthals and “Denisovans”. Comparison of these blocks confirms Paabo's hypothesis, according to which humanity can be divided into three groups: Polynesians, black aborigines of Africa and inhabitants of the rest of the world.

Then paleontologists compared the habitat of modern people and the similarity of their genomes with the Denisovan one. It turned out that two of the three populations - oceanic and non-African - contained “traces” of “Denisovans”. At the same time, the number and “depth” of traces in the genomes of residents of Europe, Asia and the aborigines of Northern and South America was noticeably different, which was not recorded by Paabo and his colleagues.

According to researchers, residents of East and Southeast Asia received the most genes. Europeans and people from the Middle East and Central Asia were less related to the Denisovans, and African aborigines apparently did not come into contact with this type of "caveman."

Scientists suggest that the first contacts between the Denisovan culture and the Asian Cro-Magnon tribes occurred approximately 30 thousand years ago, after the migration of the future ancestors of the Indians to North America. This is confirmed by the fact that the Indians are about as far from the Denisovans as the Europeans.

The closest “relatives” of the “Denisovans,” in addition to the Papuans and other oceanic peoples, live in southern China and the countries of Southeast Asia. Of these, the people closest to the “Denisovan man” are the Yi Zu people, living in the southern provinces of China. Representatives of this ethnic group turned out to be a little closer to the “Denisovans” compared to some oceanic peoples - in particular, the Papuans from the island of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

Using the data obtained, Skoglund and Jacobson built several models of human settlement throughout the Old World, which took into account or ignored the contact of the ancestors of modern “migrant” people from Africa with local aborigines - Neanderthals and Denisovans. The modeling confirmed that the modern gene spread could only have arisen if the ancestors of Cro-Magnons interbred with Denisovans and Neanderthals.

The January issue of the journal Nature published two articles on habitat times. primitive man in the territory Southern Siberia- in the famous Denisova Cave. Researchers have clarified the dating: when and by whom the cave was inhabited. And if we remember something about Neanderthals and modern people (Homo sapiens) from school, then who are Denisovans?

Replica of a Denisovan tooth. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Denisova Cave is located in the south of the Altai Territory. Archaeological work has been carried out there since 1982. During the excavations, 22 cultural layers with human remains, associated artifacts and animal bones were discovered. The most significant discoveries awaited archaeologists in the 11th layer, 50 thousand years old - finds were made in it that made Denisova Cave famous throughout the world. These are three molars, the phalanx of the little finger, bone tools and women's jewelry.

Decoding the DNA of bone remains caused a sensation in the top list scientific breakthroughs 2012, according to Science magazine, took second place (after the discovery of the Higgs boson). It turned out that the remains belonged to a species of people previously unknown to science. Before this, it was believed that Eurasia was inhabited by only two species of people - the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons who came after them (the ancestors of Homo sapiens). Genetic analysis showed that the new species (called Denisovan man) is close to Neanderthals, but nevertheless diverged from them along different branches of evolution about 640 thousand years ago.

After the discovery of geneticists, all objects and artifacts discovered in the cave were carefully and repeatedly examined. Dozens of studies have been carried out on them scientific works in world laboratories around the world. The phalanx of the little finger, as it turned out, belonged to a girl aged 7-12 years. Her appearance has been partially recreated: she was dark-skinned and brown-eyed.

Denisova Cave. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Kryazhev

Scientists were unable to detect the genes of Denisovan man in modern inhabitants of Eurasia (unlike the genes of Neanderthals - we may have up to 4% of them). The only people living on Earth who are at least somehow genetically related to this mysterious population live on the islands of Melanesia, northeast of Australia. Its representatives were found to have 5% of genes in common with the read genome of Denisovans.

It has been established that for more than 200 thousand years, Denisova Cave was home to three types of people. They lived there throughout the Paleolithic era, which ended 12 thousand years ago. And the Denisovan people lived in it 50 thousand years ago.

“Over the years of work in Denisova Cave, we have received a number of clear evidence that in this territory it was the Denisovans who created the Upper Paleolithic culture, which is commonly associated throughout the world with the spread of Homo sapiens,” says Director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS Mikhail Shunkov. “And the most ancient Denisovan bone fragment to date was found in the lowest layer of Denisova Cave, which is more than 300 thousand years old!”

Denisovan man (“Denisovan”) is a distinct population of ancient people who diverged from the “mainstream” of human development approximately a million years ago. Denisovan known from fragmentary material from Denisova Cave in the Soloneshensky district of the Altai region of Russia.

Denisovskaya cave in the Soloneshensky region in Altai is so far the only place where direct evidence of the existence of Denisovans has been found - the remains of their life and fossils. For the first time this region was inhabited by people about 65,000 years ago.

Denisovsky man - a fossil subspecies of ancient people, fragments of whose remains were discovered in Denisova Cave in Altai. The DNA of Denisovans is different from that of Neanderthals and the species Homo sapiens, but closer to Neanderthals. The Denisovan branch of humans may have split from the evolutionary tree about 700,000 years ago.

In Denisova Cave were found miniature bird bone needles with a drilled eye, ostrich egg shell beads, necklaces made from animal teeth, pendants made from shells, ornaments made from ornamental stones.

Perhaps these traces DNA point to mass migration of Denisovans through the territories of China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to Australia.

“Look where Altai is and where Australia is. How is this possible? How did 4% of Denisovan DNA get to Australian Aborigines?” - Roberts is surprised.

Australia is separated from Altai by 8368 km (for comparison, the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway is 9289 km). This is an unimaginable distance, so many of his colleagues doubt Roberts’ hypothesis.

However, the professor himself believes that everything is possible and representatives of the ancient species somehow made this grandiose journey.

Denisovan DNA had previously been found among Eskimos and other northern peoples.

Eskimos and Denisovan people share common genes

Residents of the northern regions of the planet, where the average air temperature drops to -30 ° C, are carriers of a genome similar to that of Denisovan man, a subspecies of extinct people who inhabited Siberia more than 40,000 years ago.

Temperatures in the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada and Alaska often exceed –30 °C. A large group of indigenous peoples of the north of Chukotka, North America, the northern territories of Canada from the Labrador Peninsula to the mouth of the Mackenzie River - Eskimos (eskimantzig - “raw foodist”, “one who eats raw fish”) and their subgroup Inuit (people) or Yuits - Siberian Eskimos , survive the cold thanks to a diet of fish and the ability to generate heat from a certain type of fat stored in their bodies.

Scientists compared the genetic data of 200 Greenlandic Inuit with ancient DNA taken from Neanderthals found in the Denisovskaya Cave in Altai.
They isolated two genes, TBX15 and WARS2, that make up DNA similar to the genetic variant of Denisovan man.
The TBX15 gene influences the human body's response to cold and fat distribution. Both genes are active in skin and fat tissue and are programmed differently than in Neanderthals and some modern humans.
Lead researcher Fernando Racimo explained that the Inuit DNA sequence corresponds to the Denisovan genome and is different from other sequences characteristic of modern humans.
A study of Inuit DNA showed that 80% of men have Y-chromosomal haplogroup Q, 11.7% have haplogroup R1, 8.3% belong to other haplogroups.

2017-09-16

The nature of man, the origin of man, is something that has concerned people since ancient times. There are many versions and theories. Scientists are conducting research, trying to find answers to all questions. After reading the article, you will learn about another subspecies of ancient extinct people.

Denisovan man, or Denisovans, supposedly existed in the Soloneshensky region of the Altai Territory near Denisova Cave. Evidence of this was found in different periods and in different layers of the cave.

At the moment, only five fragments have been identified that allow us to talk about Denisovan man. However, these traces are not yet enough to completely restore his appearance. However, the fragments found are sufficient to establish that the remains of this person differ from the remains of Homo Sapiens, as well as from the remains of a Neanderthal.

Denisova Cave

This cave is the most popular archaeological site that Altai can boast of. Denisovo man lived right here, 250 kilometers from the city of Biysk. The cave is quite large, with an area of 270 m².

It is located near populated areas and belongs to the horizontal type, which attracts a large number of tourists. However, there are also archaeologists here, whose hard work still led to results.

According to the results of research, in the lower layers of the cave, which are about 120 thousand years old, stone tools and jewelry were found, as well as traces ancient man, which was called Denisovan.

Fragments of the remains of Denisovan man

During the existence of the Soviet state, three molars were found that were significantly larger in size than the teeth of Homo sapiens. According to the examination, they belonged to a young male. A fragment of a finger phalanx was also found; this element is still being analyzed.

In a later period, already in 2008, another element was found - the bone of the phalanx of a child’s finger.

Denisovan genome

The found fragment in the form of a phalanx of a Denisovan finger was studied by a team of scientists from the Leipzig Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. The study showed that the mitochondrial DNA of Denisovan man differs from the mitochondrial DNA of Homo sapiens by 385 nucleotides. It is worth noting that the Neanderthal genome differs from the Homo Sapiens genome by 202 nucleotides.

Denisovan man is closer to Neanderthal than to Homo sapiens. It is also worth noting that its genes were found in Melanesians, which suggests mass interbreeding of people at the moment when Melanesians left Africa and migrated to the southeast.

Descendants of Denisovan man

According to studies, Denisovan man separated as a subspecies approximately 400-800 thousand years ago. Today, the study of fragments found in it allows us to find its genes in many modern nations. For example, most similar elements are found among residents of Southeast Asia and southern China, despite the fact that traces of these ancient people were found in Siberia.

It was also found that the named subspecies of extinct people, as well as the Neanderthal man, transmitted genes responsible for the immune system to the European population. Thanks to this find, it was also possible to create a computer model demonstrating the migration path of different types of ancestors of modern humans and the places where they met the Denisovans.

Scientists from Sweden believe that traces of Denisovan man can be found by comparing the DNA found with the DNA of modern people.

After the comparison, information was obtained both about the similarity of Denisovan with modern man, and about the matches found in Neanderthal and Denisovan. It was also possible to find out that the genes of Denisovan man are contained in the genotypes of people belonging to oceanic and non-African populations.

Harvard Medical School work

According to research from Harvard Medical School, Denisovans are significantly further from modern humans than Neanderthals, although they were originally considered cousins. Neanderthals and Denisovans were thought to be equally different from Homo sapiens. However, Harvard scientist David Reich managed to refute this.

However, the scientist himself says that this difference can also be explained by the fact that Denisovans interbred with different types ancient people.

The point of view of the German scientist Johannes Krause

German geneticist Johannes Krause from the University of Tübingen believes that the found fragments should under no circumstances be ignored. Together with his colleagues, the scientist is studying the genome of Denisovan man for the presence of traces of interbreeding. The fact is that the Denisovan teeth found are very large for such an ancient human species. It seems that its immediate ancestor was a primitive species.

According to the professor, the oddity with the teeth may well be explained by the theory that Denisovans interbred with archaic versions of people. Moreover, according to the professor, most likely it was a species already known to us, since most of them have not been studied at the genetic level.

What do London scientists say?

London researcher Chris Stringer from a museum in the UK believes that while settling throughout Europe and Western Asia, he could well have met Denisovan man, which led to mass interbreeding. Erectus is also an excellent option, since it was common in many territories and could have encountered Denisovans.

Of course, these disputes can be resolved with the help of a conventional DNA analysis of all these species, but this is impossible to do, since they simply have not been preserved. Most hominins lived in hot environments, and therefore the genome was not preserved in their remains, unlike the remains of Neanderthals and Denisovans, which were found mainly in harsher and colder conditions.

The role of crossing in human nature

Today, many species and subspecies of ancient people who are our ancestors are already known. However, there is no denying the fact that after they left Africa, they mated with many other species. It is likely that some more interesting genomes will be identified in the future.

At the moment, it is already known that mass interbreeding occurred constantly, including with as yet unidentified hominins. According to many scientists, interest in other species arose approximately 700 thousand years ago.

Based on the research conducted, we can conclude that at some point in time, human evolution was divided into several lines, one of which subsequently led to Denisovan man, and from the other came the more ancient ancestors of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Scientists have also established that Neanderthals, Denisovans and other species of Homo Sapiens lived in Altai for some time and interbred with each other. In addition, interbreeding also occurred with other species that Denisovans encountered in different periods of time and in different territories.

It is a pity that the DNA of other species of ancient people was not preserved, otherwise this connection could have been traced more clearly. However modern sciences about man does not stand still, and perhaps we will soon learn something new about our origin.

1. Name (more precisely, working title) - “Denisova 11”.

2. Source of information: nuclear DNA obtained from 175 mg of bone powder. Find: bone fragment 24.7 × 8.4 mm, location in the skeleton has not been established.

3. The girl’s age is over 13 years (as stated in one of the scientific reports, “the age of the bone remains is more than 13 years before the moment of death”).

4. Father is Denisovan, mother is Neanderthal.

5. The parents of “Denisova 11” are not purebred representatives of their subspecies; they carry the genetic trace of previous crossings, which is reflected in the girl’s genome. So, her father had at least one Neanderthal ancestor during his life.

6. The ancestors of “Denisova 11” along the Neanderthal line were probably relatively recent (about 20,000 years before the girl’s life) newcomers from Europe: in particular, their genetic connection can be traced with the inhabitants of the Vindija cave (Croatia).

7. 1.2% of Denisova 11 DNA fragments correspond to modern man, 38.6% - Neanderthal and 42.3% - Denisovan.

Professor Svante Paabo, head of the laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Human History (Leipzig, Germany):

– And to this day we are all hybrids. In the genome of certain groups of modern people one can find 10-15% of Neanderthal genes and 1.5-5% of Denisovan genes. Even such a low proportion affects, according to one of our hypotheses, adaptability to high altitude inhabitants of Tibet and to the cold - Greenland. Why not more? First, populations of Homo subspecies did not meet and interbreed as often. Secondly, there was selective selection directed against hybridization.

Vivian Sloan, employee of the laboratory of Svante Pääbo:

– We carefully checked all our results and the purity of their receipt. Versions such as mixing of material in the laboratory, errors in analytical equipment, and even the consequences of cannibalism were excluded. We can confidently say: the genome of the daughter of Denisovan man and a representative of the Altai Neanderthal population was sequenced(which separated more than 390,000 years ago - website note)

It has also been established that crossing of different subspecies of hominids in the Pleistocene era occurred almost every time different populations came into contact.

Location of Denisova Cave

Scientific director Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS, Academician Anatoly Panteleevich Derevyanko:

Neanderthals also lived in the cave along with the Denisovans. The question naturally arises: how did they coexist? Recently I put forward two hypotheses.

The first is antagonistic, when two species compete to the point of mutual destruction and even consumption of their own kind as food. This is supported by the absence of Neanderthal industrial objects in Denisova Cave - only fragments of their remains. Although, I note that in the Okladnikov Cave, located 45 km (as the crow flies), a sufficient number of Neanderthal stone products were found, more archaic compared to Denisovan ones.

The second hypothesis is that there was a complementary relationship between Neanderthals and Denisovan people, even to the point of interbreeding. This option is supported by the last discovery included in the subtitle.

In the same eleventh layer in 2016, a fragment of human bone was found, so tiny that it has not yet been possible to establish its exact place in the skeleton. But sequencing of the DNA obtained from the bone showed that this girl, no younger than 13 years old, was a hybrid of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan, and in the fourth generation. Note that mixed-species offspring (for example, horses and donkeys) are not capable of further reproduction. Since Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred more than once, it follows that they belong to the same biological species, despite all the already established cultural and genetic differences.

This is an extremely important fundamental discovery. Denisovans and Neanderthals also interbred with early modern humans, who formed in Africa 200–150 thousand years ago. All this testifies to the unity of the biological species that settled in Africa and Eurasia. And this attracts more and more of our colleagues from all over the world to Denisova Cave: archaeologists, geneticists, anthropologists, paleontologists.

Did this discovery bring new knowledge about the appearance of Denisovans? Not yet. Genetic analysis provides incomplete information, since not all parts of the ancient genome can be restored. It all depends on the length of the chain and its sections that can be explored. So, about the first girl from Denisova Cave, we only know that she was dark-skinned and brown-eyed, plus her approximate age.