There were several humanities on Earth that developed in parallel, one of the authors of the scientific sensation is convinced
The fact that there were several "trial" humanities on Earth is now genetically proven. Recently, specialists from the famous German Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology discovered that the structure of DNA in a person found by Russian archaeologists in the Denisovskaya Cave differs by 50% from the genetic code of living sapiens. The Altai hominid is genetically farther from us than even the famous Neanderthal: his genome has 385 differences from ours, while only 202 indicators separate us from the Neanderthals.
The most important role in this discovery was played by Russian scientists. Actually, it was they who discovered that fragment of the skeleton of a primitive man that caused such a sensation today. We are talking about this find and what is connected with it with a person who for 30 years led and headed research archaeological work in Altai. This is one of the leading Russian experts in ancient history, Academician-Secretary of the Department of Historical and Philological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences Anatoly Derevyanko.
QUESTION: The director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Professor Svante Paabo, said when the results of the genetic analyzes were made known: “The data obtained exceeded all expectations. It seems too weird to be true. This, apparently, is about a new kind of man, which was previously unknown to world science. This is not a mistake, is it really so? Have you discovered a new kind of human being?
ANSWER: Archaeological materials absolutely reliably confirm the originality of ancient cultures in this region. The only thing lacking was the results directly related to the person himself, to his physical appearance, more precisely, to belonging to one or another species. And finally, last year, a phalanx of an ancient hominid finger was found, which was investigated at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig by Professor Paabo and his collaborators. The results of DNA decoding confirmed: a new person from the point of view of anthropology and genetics settled in Altai.
So, in general, these are our joint results, we discussed everything with Paabo, and now they are published in Nature.
QUESTION: And what kind of person is this? Genetics by genetics, but what does anthropology say about this find, from the point of view, so to speak, of the accepted taxonomy? How were the remains originally classified? Which branch of humanity do they belong to?
ANSWER: This is, in principle, homo sapiens sapiens. That is, a person of the modern type. But regarding its belonging to one of the branches of its development as a species, this is a question that genetics answered. On the biological material of the phalanx of the finger that was found last year, at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, not only mitochondrial, but also nuclear DNA has now been decoded. The results of the first decryption were confirmed. It turned out the same: in Altai there lived not the same “reasonable man” that had previously left Africa.
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QUESTION: So the modern theory of human evolution is cracking at the seams?
ANSWER: One of the most important problems is the origin of a person of a modern physical type, his culture. It is believed - and I share this opinion - that the first man left Africa somewhere around 2 million years ago. This is homo erectus or homo ergaster, that is, "straightened person" or "skilled person". It was he who began settling all over Eurasia. It was from him that modern mankind ultimately originated.
And here the most important thing begins. Our materials confirm that "modern man" could have come from one of the erectoid forms not only in Africa, but also in other regions of Eurasia.
For 30 years we have been excavating 9 cave sites and more than 10 open-type sites at a short distance from each other - about 150 km. All these sites contain 12 or more cultural horizons. And the main conclusions we came to are that human culture has been continuously developing on the territory of Altai for 300 thousand years. This is the most important moment: the culture of Homo sapiens was formed in the territory of Altai autochthonously!
More precisely, the first settlement of Altai, according to our data, really happened by immigrants from Africa about 800 thousand years ago. For biological or climatic reasons, it is still unclear, but about 500 thousand years ago, man left the Altai territory. And 300 thousand years ago, there was a resettlement within the framework of a new wave of aliens. And since then there has been continuous development. Which ended in a form of sapiens, but genetically distant from us further than the Neanderthal. It has already been given the name homo altainsis.
QUESTION: What form of hominids produced this last dispersal 300 thousand years ago?
ANSWER: We do not have an anthropological type, but, most likely, it was one of the erectoid forms, that is, one of the forms of homo erectus.
QUESTION: She has nothing to do with the Heidelberg man?
ANSWER: Well, Heidelberg was in Europe.
QUESTION: There is simply a theory according to which Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalenses originated from Heidelberg man. Only one "grew" in dry and hot Africa, and the second - in cold glacial Europe. And because of this, they became different species.
ANSWER: This point of view also exists.
QUESTION: And the Altai man, it turns out, went the way to a modern man directly from erectus?
ANSWER: Yes. Yes. In other words, the man we found is not a descendant of the sapiens that came out of Africa. And this refutes the modern theory that a modern type of man settled around the world only from there. In some places, in particular, in Altai, autochthonous branches developed.
QUESTION: Then another question immediately arises. Since the Altai man developed autochthonously, independently of the African man, why did he become the same sapiens? It turns out that modern man will still be formed from whatever early forms? As in that joke: no matter what you try to collect, you still get a Kalashnikov assault rifle?
ANSWER: The fact is that all these forms are erectoid, from homo erectus. They belonged to the same species, were subspecies of the same species. Therefore, purely biological, genetic differences were small. In addition, of course, there was both crossbreeding and culture.
Most importantly, these were not different species. Therefore, there is no contradiction in the fact that a person of the modern type could have formed from erectus in both East Asia and Africa. It is still very difficult to talk about Europe. This is a very debatable problem.
In any case, our work in Siberia and Altai is very important for the development of the theory of human evolution. And if we talk about the scale of work, the results of work, about the information content, then, of course, it is difficult to find an example of such a scale of research in Eurasia and Africa.
Alexander Tsyganov