A Jawbone From An Extinct Relative Of Ours Was Found Off The Coast Of Taiwan
Off the coast of Taiwan, a human jaw was discovered, and it does not belong to our species or Neanderthals. Instead, it came from another extinct relative of ours, the Denisovans.
Since its discovery in the early 2000s on the seafloor off the west coast of Taiwan, the jawbone has been something of a mystery. In a new study, a team of researchers analyzed its proteins to figure out which species it belongs to.
Their findings showed that the individual was Denisovan, a sort of cousin of Neanderthals and humans. During the Pleistocene epoch, Denisovans roamed throughout Asia. The study of the jawbone has paved the way for the identification of other unknown fossils.
“The same technique can and is being used to study other hominin fossils to determine whether they too are Denisovans, Neanderthals, or other hominin populations,” said Frido Welker, a co-author of the study and a molecular anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen.
The jawbone was caught in a net by a fisherman from the floor of the Penghu Channel, which is about 15.5 miles off the west coast of Taiwan.
The Penghu 1 specimen has been a source of debate among experts ever since it was documented. There have been disagreements on whether the robust jaw with large teeth came from a Homo erectus, a Homo sapiens, or a Denisovan.
Denisovans lived at the same time as Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. However, they are mostly known from DNA because only a few fossils have ever been found. The majority of them came from Denisova Cave in Siberia.
The research team used paleoproteomics, a relatively new technique for analyzing ancient proteins, to show that Penghu 1 was male.
His amino acids and proteins were most similar to Denisovans. The study confirms that there was hominin presence in the farthest reaches of eastern Eurasia during the Pleistocene.
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Unfortunately, Penghu 1 can’t be dated accurately because it was sitting in water for so long, and DNA extractions were unsuccessful.
Animal bones found alongside the jawbone place its age range at either 10,000 to 70,000 years ago or 130,000 to 190,000 years ago.
Even though the exact dates are unknown, Penghu 1 still shows that Denisovans were all over Asia, from frigid regions like Siberia to warm, humid areas like Taiwan.
“It is now clear that two contrasting hominin groups—small-toothed Neanderthals with tall but gracile mandibles and large-toothed Denisovans with low but robust mandibles —coexisted during the late Middle to early Late Pleistocene of Eurasia,” wrote the researchers of the study.
In the future, this unique analytical approach can be applied to other mysterious fossils found in channels and riverbeds in Asia.
The details of the new study were published in Science.
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