A ghost lineage involves life
Denisovans are the ghost in our household tree. For scientists, a “ghost lineage” is one which’s identified largely from genetic proof, not fossils; like a ghost, it has a presence we are able to sense however no bodily type we are able to contact. With the extraordinarily well-preserved Harbin cranium recognized as a Denisovan, although, we’re lastly capable of look our “ghost” cousins within the face.
Paleogeneticists have recovered Denisovan DNA from tiny fragments of bone and enamel, and even from the soil of a cave ground. Genomics researchers have discovered segments of Denisovan DNA woven into the genomes of some fashionable people, revealing simply how shut our two species as soon as have been. However the handful of Denisovan fossils paleoanthropologists have unearthed are largely small fragments—a finger bone right here, a tooth there, a jawbone someplace else—that don’t reveal a lot about how Denisovans lived or what they appeared like.
We all know they existed and that they have been one thing barely completely different from Homo sapiens or Neanderthals. We even know when and the place they lived and a stunning quantity about their genetics, and we’ve some very sturdy hints about how they interacted with our species and with Neanderthals. However we did not actually know what they appeared like, and we could not hope to establish their fossils with out turning to DNA or protein sequences.
Till now.
Credit score:
loronet / Flickr
The face of a Denisovan
So what did a Denisovan appear like? Harbin 1 has a large, flattish face with small cheekbones, massive eye sockets, and a heavy forehead. Its higher jaw juts ahead just a bit, and it had massive, strong molars. The skull itself is longer and fewer dome-like than ours, nevertheless it’s roomy sufficient for a giant mind (about 1,420 millimeters).
A few of these traits, like the massive molars and the lengthy, low skull, resemble these of earlier hominin species comparable to Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis. Others, like a comparatively flat face, set beneath the skull as a substitute of protruding in entrance of it, look extra like us. (Early hominins, like Australopithecus afarensis, don’t actually have foreheads as a result of their skulls are organized so their brains are proper behind their faces as a substitute of partly above them, like ours.)
