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In December 2010, scientists discovered a fragment of a finger bone in the remote, isolated Denisova Cave in Siberia. To their surprise, the bone contained neither
Homo sapiens nor Neanderthal DNA. Rather, the fast-advancing science of paleogenetics revealed that the DNA came from a previously unknown species of hominids-the Denisovans (as they almost immediately came to be called)-who shared a common ancestor with both Neanderthals and
Homo sapiens.
This first and subsequent Denisovan fossil discoveries required paleoanthropologists, including world-leading researcher and author Silvana Condemi, to reconsider their understanding of our ancestors and their successive prehistoric migrations out of Africa and into and throughout Eurasia tens of thousands of years ago.
Leading us through the excavation of Denisova Cave, the sequencing of the Denisovan genome, and recent fossil research, Condemi and her coauthor, science journalist François Savatier, explore how the Denisovans migrated throughout Asia and with whom they interacted along the way, as well as the comparisons and divergences between the evolutionary processes of Denisovans and our other ancestor cousins, Neanderthals. They help us to understand and appreciate how today's inhabitants of East Asia-from Siberia to the Philippines-carry up to 5 percent of Denisovan DNA, and they revise the epic story of our ancient human ancestors' immense journeys as they peopled our planet.
List of contents
- Prologue
- Part 1: The Third Men
- The Enigma
- In the Denisova Cave
- Denisova, a Human Species?
- Denisova Through Its Genes
- An Immense Empire in the East
- Part 2: Origins
- Before Denisova: The Strange Homo erectus
- The Earth System, Home to Denisova?
- Denisova, Sons of Crossbreeding
- The Ancestor of Denisova and Neanderthal
- Heading East
- The Bamboo Empire
- Part 3: In the Denisova Skin
- Portrait of Denisova
- In Search of Lost Denisovan Fossils
- Denisova's Body and Face Are Back!
- Living Denisova
- Bibliography
- Credits
- List of Infographics
- Acknowledgments
About the author
Silvana Condemi, a world-leading paleoanthropologist, is the research director of CNRS, the largest French public scientific research organization, at Aix-Marseille University. She is the coauthor of A Pocket History of Human Evolution and The Secret World of Denisovans.
