2021-04-19 06:05:48 GMT2021-04-19 14:05:48(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
by Xinhua writers Hu Tao, Zhang Wenjing
LANZHOU, April 19 (Xinhua) Chinese archaeologists are using the latest technology to understand the lives of an ancient ancestor of human beings, based on a jawbone fossil found on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
By studying the fossil and sediments from the Baishiya Karst Cave in which the fossil was discovered, researchers have identified the jawbone as belonging to an extinct species of archaic human named Denisovan hominins that had previously only been found in Siberia.
In addition to extending the known range of the Denisovans, the discovery provides evidence of pre-historic human activity on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at least 160,000 years ago, much earlier than the previous date of 40,000 years ago.