The Denisovans: The History of the Extinct Archaic Humans Who Spread Across Asia during the Paleolithic Era by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2020-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

Distinguishing the Denisovans and Neanderthals

Scholarly knowledge of Neanderthal material culture has helped paleoanthropologists extrapolate ideas about the lives of the Denisovans, but there were also plenty of features of the Denisovans and their culture that were quite unique from the Neanderthals. Although the current extant samples of Denisovans are quite limited, they are enough to help develop an outline of when the Neanderthals and Denisovans diverged and when and how the Denisovans migrated into Asia.

The Denisovans acquired their name from a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, a location where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan meet. They are cold, barren and scarcely populated, somewhat similar to the Paleolithic Era when the Denisovans occupied the now famous cave. The cave was first discovered in the 1970s and although Soviet era scientists knew of the human remains not long after it was discovered, since the remains were fragmentary, they were not given much attention. Furthermore, the three chambered cave is not very large and for the most part very similar to other caves in the region and from the period. It was large enough to be used for a multi-family/tribe dwelling and adequate enough to provide shelter from the elements as well as wild animals and other hominins. Part of the reason why the Denisova Cave received little scholarly attention was because it is located in at the middle of a cluster of caves that were inhabited by modern humans in the Early Upper Paleolithic Period (40,000-30,000 years ago) and the Late Upper Paleolithic Period (20,000-10,000) (Klein 2009, 674), by which time the Denisovans were already extinct. As a result, other caves with more remains historically received much more attention.

Another reason why the Denisova Cave was not given much early attention was partially due to the nature of the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities routinely censored academic discoveries, giving more freedom to scholars whose ideas could be construed in a pro-Marxist, pro-Soviet light, meaning new discoveries often had to be considered by political commissars and members of the Communist Party before they received a green light for more research. Publication of findings was further hampered by bureaucracy that was exemplified by a seemingly endless supply of red tape. The importance of new discoveries was also often slowed when Soviet officials limited and controlled academics from entering or leaving the country which included international cooperation. Modern nation-states have also exercised the authority to control their borders and issue visas, but Soviet policies in this regard were often such that Westerners, especially Americans, found it difficult to get visas to visit the Soviet Union, never mind one to conduct fieldwork. Thus, even though human evolutionary theory was a standard policy in Soviet academia, the authorities were still reluctant to allow outsiders to do much work at one of their sites.

Once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Russia opened itself a bit more to the world, research on the Denisova Cave was theoretically also open to more people, yet it continued to linger in obscurity.

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