Why Denisova Cave is Important for Paleolithic Culture?

Civan Ekmekçi*

Why Denisova Cave is Important for Paleolithic Culture?

The first discovery of Denisovans in 2008, a partial finger bone, provided scant evidence of their skeletal characteristics. Subsequent deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analyses, however, offered a wealth of information on this hominin population.
The DNA sequencing demonstrated that Denisovans coexisted with other hominins such as Neanderthals or Homo Sapiens in the Middle Pleistocene. Genetic information demonstrates that Denisovans was a sister group to the Neanderthals and interbred with modern humans, explaining why the people living in Melanesian islands carry five per cent of Denisovan genes.
In the past few years, key artefacts supporting the genetics have surfaced stone tools, bone points, tooth pendants, and the like. However, one class of objects is the most significant, the knapped stone tools of
the Denisovans. The manufacturing of these tools clearly demonstrates that the Denisovans had been close enough to both Neanderthals and Modern Humans for intercultural communications.
To study the diversity of middle Pleistocene transition (MPT) and the culture of the earliest H. sapiens, recent discoveries of the presence of early H. sapiens in Asia, paleoanthropologists and bioarchaeologists focused mainly on hominin fossils of the European continent ignoring Asia and specifically the area
of north of Himalayas, the Barents Sea.
However, extensive archaeological excavations in Siberia led by Anatole Derevianko et al3 suggest that there are continuous sequences of tool industries from Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic.
Moreover, new geochronological methods at Denisova Cave supported the evidence of continuous lithic culture without interruption between homo species is certain in this massive expanse.

Anthropol Open J. 2022; 5(1): 14-15. doi: 10.17140/ANTPOJ-5-125

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