Philippa Kaur

Snow leopards were among the animals hunted by DenisovansKlaus Honal / Alamy
Ancient humans known as Denisovans hunted a wide range of animals on the Tibetan plateau, including blue sheep, yaks and snow leopards. This varied diet enabled them to thrive in the high-altitude region for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of modern humans.
“Denisovans were behaviourally quite flexible,” says Frido Welker at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “They’re able to really adapt to the local environment and the species that are present there.”
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The Denisovans are one of the most mysterious groups of hominins with which we once shared the planet. They were first described in 2010, based on DNA extracted from a fragment of finger bone found in Denisova cave in the Altai mountains, Russia. It was the first time a hominin group had been identified solely based on DNA.
It is likely that Denisovans were once widespread in southern Asia because today many people in southern Asia and South-East Asia carry Denisovan DNA, indicating that Denisovans interbred with Homo sapiens tens of thousands of years ago. However, Denisova cave has only yielded teeth and other fragments. As a result, we don’t know much about what Denisovans looked like.
In 2019, researchers including Welker described a jawbone from Baishiya Karst cave in Xiahe in the north-east Tibetan plateau dated to 160,000 years ago. Protein from one of the teeth was identified as Denisovan.
The following year, another group found Denisovan DNA in the sediments of the cave. The DNA was variously 100,000, 60,000 and possibly 45,000 years old – implying that Denisovans lived there for over 100,000 years.
The Tibetan plateau is 4000 metres above sea level. The air is thin and it is cold and dry, making it a challenging place to live. To find out how the Denisovans survived for so long, Welker and his colleagues studied the animal bones from Baishiya Karst cave. By looking at the shapes of the bones and extracting telltale proteins, they identified 2005 out of 2567 bones or bone fragments.
The most numerous animals were blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), or bharal. They and other sheep and goat relatives “make up around half of the assemblage”, says Welker. Other medium-sized plant-eaters included wild yak, Tibetan gazelles and red deer. There were also small animals like groove-toothed flying squirrels and porcupines. What’s more, there were some large carnivores, including spotted hyenas, wolves and snow leopards, plus some birds such as golden eagles.
Most of the bones seem to have been brought in by Denisovans: 19 per cent had clear evidence of this, such as cut marks made by stone tools, and less than 1 per cent showed signs – such as tooth marks – of being carried in by rodents or carnivores.
The setting of Baishiya Karst cave on the Tibetan plateauDongju Zhang’s group (Lanzhou University)
“This would be the second site where we can be absolutely certain that there are Denisovans present and that the associated assemblages specifically represent their behaviours,” says Samantha Brown at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Other sites on the Tibetan plateau have stone tools but no hominin remains, so we don’t know who lived there. Further afield, a single molar tooth described in 2022 from Tam Ngu Hao 2 limestone cave in Laos has been tentatively identified as Denisovan.
We can’t draw too many inferences about Denisovans’ capabilities based on so few sites, says Brown. “However, we expect that Denisovans would once have been found as far north as Siberia and potentially as far south as [the islands of] South-East Asia. It could be that, as we find more of their sites, we really begin to see that Denisovans were highly adaptable.”
One of the bones from Baishiya Karst cave, a piece of rib, turned out to be another Denisovan. It was found in a layer of sediments dated to between 48,000 and 32,000 years ago – making it the youngest known Denisovan specimen. Welker says stone tools from Nwya Devu on the plateau are evidence that modern humans were also living there by 40,000 years ago – hinting that Denisovans and modern humans co-existed in the area.

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Skulls found in the banks of the river Thielle in Cornaux/Les Sauges in Switzerland are now stored at the Laténium Museum in HauteriveSchweizerischer Nationalfonds/Fonds national suisse
For decades, scientists have wondered about the history of 20 people, as well as a handful of farm animals, who seemingly drowned 2000 years ago in a Swiss river. One idea is that these individuals were sacrificed from a bridge, which later collapsed. But new evidence supports the notion that, for at least some of them, their demise – along with the bridge’s – was due to a natural disaster.
In 1965, archaeologists uncovered… More

Sasithorn Phuapankasemsuk/Getty Images
Try to imagine an environment largely untouched by humans and the Amazon rainforest might spring to mind. After all, large swathes of this South American landscape are blanketed in thick vegetation, suggesting it is one corner of the world that humans never managed to tame. Here, there must have been no deforestation, no agricultural revolution and no cities. It seems like a pristine environment.
Or so we thought. But a very different picture is emerging. Archaeologists working with Indigenous communities have been shown crumbling urban remains and remote sensing technologies such as lidar are revealing the footprints of vast ghost cities. With so much evidence of ancient human activity, it is now thought the pre-Columbian Amazon was inhabited by millions of people – some living in large built-up areas complete with road networks, temples and pyramids.
But that’s not all this research reveals. Paradoxically, it also provides evidence that the traditional view of the Amazon isn’t completely wide of the mark. For instance, while the ancient Amazonians managed their landscape intensively, they didn’t deforest it. And although they developed complex societies, they never went through a wholesale agricultural revolution. This might suggest that the pre-Columbian Amazonians broke the mould of human cultural development, which is traditionally seen as a relentless march from hunting and gathering to farming to urban complexity. The truth is more surprising. In fact, we are now coming to understand that there was no such mould – civilisation arose in myriad ways. What looks like an anomaly in the Amazon is actually a shining example of a process that was as vibrant and diverse as the rainforest itself.
Despite… More

Ancient ritual stick discovered in Cloggs cave, AustraliaGunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
Wooden artefacts found in an Australian cave suggest that an Indigenous ceremony documented in the 19th century may have been practised 12,000 years ago, making it possibly the oldest known cultural ritual anywhere in the world.
Between 2019 and 2020, a team of archaeologists and members of a local Indigenous community called the GunaiKurnai from south-eastern Australia conducted an excavation at Cloggs cave, near the Snowy river in Victoria.
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The site had been partly dug in the 1970s, but during the new work the team discovered two preserved fireplaces, which contained mostly unburnt artefacts made of wood from local Casuarina trees. Chemical analysis revealed these artefacts were smeared with animal or human fat and dated to between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, making them among the oldest wooden artefacts found in Australia.
On its own, this would have been a major but mysterious discovery. However, the researchers and community members were at the same time examining an ethnographic report by 19th-century anthropologist Alfred Howitt, who researched the customs and traditions of tribes in south-eastern Australia in the 1880s.
In 1887, very close to Cloggs cave, he recorded the practices of Indigenous “wizards”, now referred to as “mulla-mullung”, who are powerful GunaiKurnai medicine men and women. He wrote a detailed account of one ceremony that involved smearing animal or human fat on throwing sticks made of Casuarina wood and placing them in small ceremonial fires as a magic charm or curse. He understood the ritual to be used against an enemy or someone whom those conducting the ritual wished to harm.
“The wizard has during this time been singing his charm; as it is usually expressed, he ‘sings the man’s name,’ and when the stick falls the charm is complete. The practice still exists,” wrote Howitt.
Bruno David at Monash University in Melbourne and Russell Mullett, a GunaiKurnai elder, say the similarities between the archaeological discoveries and the ethnographic account have convinced them that the same ritual was used for up to 12,000 years.
Mullett says he was convinced of the connection because Howitt’s account so closely matched what they had found in the cave – the type of wood and the fats smeared on the stick, positioned exactly as Howitt had described.
“This cements the longevity of our oral traditions and knowledge and the transferral of that knowledge from generation to generation,” says Mullett.
David says the conclusions grew slowly following the discovery of such rare timber artefacts.
“Archaeologists never get to see the performances behind such ancient deposits,” he says. “To me, it’s absolutely remarkable the physical evidence that corresponds so closely to the cultural knowledge has survived virtually intact, and for so long. It exactly matches the practices described by Howitt.”
“The team’s methods are meticulous and remarkable,” says Paul Taçon at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.
There were lots of changes to these communities over time, says Taçon, but this ritual seems to have stayed the same. “What strikes me about this case is that this same form of ritual practice must have been considered to have been important and effective to have been perpetuated over such a long period of time.”

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Pictograms from Upuigma-tepui rock shelter in Canaima National Park, VenezuelaUNIVERSIDAD SIMON BOLIVAR
An archaeologist has tracked down more than 20 rock art sites in south-eastern Venezuela decorated with evocative geometric designs that may date back several thousand years. The pictograms and petroglyphs offer a rare glimpse into the culture of people who lived in the forested highlands that now make up Canaima National Park, long before the arrival of Europeans.
José Miguel Pérez-Gómez of Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, Venezuela, has collaborated for years with the Indigenous Pemón community to document the remote art, which he… More

Neanderthal reconstruction at the Museum of Natural History Vienna in AustriaNeanderthals/Alamy Stock Photo
A Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome survived until at least the age of 6, if interpretations of a fossilised ear bone are correct. The find adds to the evidence that Neanderthals, far from being brutish and unfeeling, routinely showed compassion for other members of their society, although researchers disagree on the extent to which the child may have needed extra attention.

“Neanderthals were clearly caring for people in their group, and this is a lovely example that really brings home how much they cared,” says Penny Spikins at the University of York in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the research.Advertisement
The Neanderthal fossil was found in Cova Negra, a cave near the town of Xàtiva in eastern Spain. The cave has been excavated on and off since the 1920s, revealing that it was home to Neanderthals between 273,000 and 146,000 years ago.
Sorting through animal remains from Cova Negra, researchers led by Mercedes Conde Valverde at the University of Alcalá in Spain identified a fragment of hominin bone. It was found in disturbed sediments, so can’t be reliably dated. The bone is part of the temporal bone from the side and base of the skull, and includes parts of the inner ear.
Conde Valverde and her colleagues used CT scans to create a 3D model of the bone. This allowed them to identify it as being from a Neanderthal, not a modern human. Based on its developmental state, the bone belonged to a child who was at least 6 years old, and probably no more than 10.
The team found several distinctive features in the development of the inner ear, specifically in three tubes called the semicircular canals that are involved in hearing and balance. One of the canals was unusually wide. Another was connected to a neighbouring chamber called the vestibular aqueduct, which is normally separate. Furthermore, the cochlea, which is crucial for hearing, was especially small.
This combination of features is found only in people with Down’s syndrome, says Conde Valverde. In this genetic condition, instead of having two copies of chromosome 21, a person generally has three. The condition can cause learning disabilities, problems with hearing and balance, and distinctive facial features.

It has probably existed as long as humans: a study of ancient DNA, published in February, found six cases of Down’s syndrome in babies and young children, one dating back almost 5000 years.
The newly identified child would have needed more care than other Neanderthal children, says Conde Valverde. For instance, moving from place to place may have been difficult due to attacks of vertigo, which can be a symptom in Down’s syndrome.
“We think that probably the mother needs help,” she says, because the time demands of increased childcare would take her and potentially the father away from other key activities, such as obtaining food.

Conde Valverde says the other Neanderthals in the group are unlikely to have expected the child to contribute much practical help, so they must have cared for them out of pure compassion.
Sarah Turner at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, doesn’t think this low expectation is necessarily true. “People with Down’s syndrome contribute in all sorts of ways to modern human societies,” she says. “And I am sure that was true in Neanderthal society too.”
The Neanderthal temporal bone fossil found in Cova Negra, SpainJulia Diez-Valero
“There is a lot of variation in terms of what is considered a disability and how people with disabilities are treated in different human contexts,” says Turner. “Compassion is one possible motivator, but without knowing about someone’s life and how they were treated and behaved, I don’t think we can say too much about how and why they survived.”
Turner has also previously shown that wild primates can survive for a long time even if they are born with disabilities or developmental conditions. This included one instance of a baby chimpanzee born with what appeared to be Down’s syndrome, who survived as long as the mother had help from an older daughter, but died after the daughter had a baby of her own and could no longer help.

The new study adds to the evidence of caregiving and compassion among Neanderthals, says Spikins. For instance, an adult male Neanderthal whose remains were found in Shanidar cave in Iraq had a damaged arm and leg and was “probably deaf and blind in one eye”. He lived another 10 to 15 years after getting these injuries, so “he must have been looked after”.
Conde Valverde and Spikins both dismiss the idea that caregiving behaviour would have been done in the expectation of getting help once a child has grown up.
“It comes very much from our society, this idea of analytically thinking if someone’s going to be productive,” says Spikins. The reality is that we evolved to live in tight-knit groups and an instinct to care for each other was crucial. People with Down’s syndrome are often “tremendously affectionate and very sociable”, she says, “and that counts for such a lot in these kind of small-scale societies”.

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