Jawbone dredged up from the seafloor expands the range of a mysterious species of ancient human
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It seems that the fossilized jaw bone with a hunting network from the sea floor is 15 miles (25 km) off the coast of Taiwan in 2010, but for years scientists failed to overcome the place where it is perfectly proportional to the human family tree.
Now, scientists have been able to confirm the identity of mysterious fossils, known as Penghu 1, by analyzing the ancient protein fragments present in the teeth that are still connected to the jaw. The jaw bone belongs to Denisovan’s man, according to The published results Thursday in the Journal of Science.
“We have decided and have shown over the past two years that these proteins can stay longer than the DNA, and that if we have a decent recovery, we can say something about the evolutionary origin of the sample,” said Fredo Wilker, a co -author of the International Institute at Copenhagen.
The fishermen who have long been working outside the coast of Taiwan bulldozed the bones of the ancient animals – elephants, water buffalo and Al -Wahbal – in their nets, the effects of the ice age when the sea levels were lower and the ocean canal was a prominent bridge.
The shallow sea appears when the tide decreases in this coastal view in the Penghu Islands, a group of islands in the Taiwan Strait, where fossils were discovered on the sea floor. Jay Chang
Dinisovan’s man is likely to live on this tape of the ground that was present between what is now China and Taiwan. This discovery determines the third place, which was categorically known that the mysterious ancient humans who were first identified in 2010 lived and showed that Denisovan occupied a variety of environments: Siberia Mountains, high -rise Tibet Plateau and wet tropical lapses.
An unusual source
The study said the participant Chun-Hessiang Chang, the Secretary of Excavations at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Taiwan. The museum contains thousands of fossils from the sea floor in its collection.
A jaw bone college, which was now identified as Denisovan, brought to the museum that wanted to learn more about the sample, and Zhang said he immediately realized that it was unusual and encouraged the collector of the plural to donate or sell the fossil to the museum, which he did.
A Paper Chang has been argued in authorship of 2015 Al -Ahfour belongs to the gender of Homo, the gathering to which our race belongs, the sane, and other ancient humans like primitive humans, but colleagues were unable to extract any old DNA from fossils and were unable to verify the exact species.
It was also not possible to accurately fossils. Scientists believe that his age ranges between 10,000 and 70,000, 130,000 and 190,000 years, and its history dates back to a time when sea levels in this field were low.
Zhang took the sample to Copenhagen in 2022 hoping to know more of Wilker and other scientists who were leading techniques to extract proteins from fossils, a field known as red proteins.
Zhang called on airport security in Copenhagen to prevent him when the case that contains the jaw bone passed through the X -ray machine. He said: “They stopped me and wanted to open (the case).” “I thought they might have been arresting me.” Zhang said he was allowed to leave only after participating his credentials and giving security personnel “a very short lesson for human development.”
Before testing the jaw bone, Wilker and his colleagues took samples of the elephant bone and the pig from the same part of the sea floor to work on extracting methods that will work better and determine whether the proteins are still present. The team found proteins and started extracting them.
Two sequences of amino acids from the recovered proteins from the sample that match those known from the Genome Denisovan – a full set of sequential genetic information from the DNA. Moreover, the laboratory work discovered a type of protein with a gender peptide called amyloginine, and the detection of the peptides specified by Y Chromosome that the individual Denisovan was male, Wilker said.
Denisovan is a paradox
Denisovan was first identified in 2010 in a laboratory using the DNA sequence extracted from a small part of the finger bone in the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, which is how the group got its name.
The genetic analysis later revealed that Denisovan, like primitive humans, has once interfered with the first modern humans. The effects of the DNIsovan DNA in the current people indicate that the old species is likely to live once across Asia, and the last discovery of Denisovan fossils from outside their cave began the same name to show that they occupied a wide range of places in Asia.
In 2019, scientists shared news Jaw bone in a cave On the northeastern edge of the Tibet Plateau, known as Shawhah, the lower jaw, it contained the signature of Denisovan’s molecules. Denisovan’s bone of the same cave was reported in 2024.
In 2022, scholars The teeth were identified It was discovered in a cave in Laos like Denisovan because it is closely similar to teeth from the lower jaw. The idea put species in Southeast Asia for the first time, although scientists were unable to obtain any final molecular information from the Molly to confirm it.
Experts say Denisovan had unusually large molars. Scientists obtained genetic information about them through a few excavations available. Jay Chang
Proteins discovered in one of the teeth associated with the jaw bone revealed that they belong to Dinisovan’s man. Jay Chang
Archaeologist Zang Dongjo, a professor at the Chinese University of Lanzo, who worked on Shihiha, said that good preservation of proteins in the lower jaw Pingo 1 is surprising, given that he was at the bottom of the sea for a long time. She did not participate in the study.
She said: “With the accumulation of Denisovan fossils and the increase in the specific molecular signature of the Dinisovan, Denisovan’s fossils will be easier.” “I think more Denisovan fossils will be found and determined in (the future). We will know more about this mysterious type.”
Katrina Doca, associate professor of archaeological sciences at the Austrian University of Vienna, described Denisovan as a paradox because scientists have detailed genetic information about species but a few excavations, little is known about how they appeared, although they have noticed that they have “exceptionally large molars”.
Ryan McCray, an ancient scientist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, said the lower jaw did not have the lower jaw in Bengo 1 and Xiahe the teeth of wisdom, which could indicate that their jaws did not emerge forward in their face.
“The lower jaw does not have a chin, as modern humans do, so it is possible that the introduction of the jaw line looks more than our movie.” “The authors wisely note that the Penghu jaw is a male, which means that it may show the end of the largest and most powerful difference of this type. In other words, the female Denisovans can look as it is, or completely different, we don’t know yet.”
Doca and Mcrae did not participate in the study.
The mysterious humans do not have the name of the officially accepted species so far, although some Scientists have suggested Homo GolinsisRating Denisovan gather fossils with other fossils from China, including “Dragon Man” A skull described in 2021.
Zhang said that he and his colleagues hope to reconsider 4000 fossils or so in the National Museum of Natural Sciences collection that was collected from the sea floor in the Taiwan Strait over the course of forty to 50 years and the use of the same protein methods applied to Penghu 1 Jawbone to investigate any other fragments belonging to Denisovans.
“Perhaps inside my collection there is some treasure that we do not know about,” said Zhang.
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