Episode 40: The Denisovans

Origin Stories

Meredith Johnson

Natural Sciences, Science, Life Sciences

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2019

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A mysterious new human relative was discovered ten years ago from a pinky bone found in a Siberian cave. They're called the Denisovans, and people around the world carry their DNA today. Until just a few months ago, the sum total of all the fossils the Denisovans left behind could fit in the palm of your hand. Now new research is unlocking more of their secrets.

Thanks

Thanks to Bence Viola and Viviane Slon for sharing their work.

Dr. Viola also wants to give a shoutout to his colleagues, including Anatoly Derevyanko over more than 40 years has excavated countless sites in Siberia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. And Michael Sunkov who now heads the excavations at Denisova.

I also want to thank Sergey Zelensky who provided the sounds of Denisova cave and the recording of the conference.

Click here to learn more about Leakey Foundation grantee Frido Welker's work on ancient proteins.

The Leakey Foundation

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. Support this show and the science we talk about with a tax-deductible donation.

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Credits

Host and Producer: Meredith Johnson

Editor: Julia Barton

Theme Music: Henry Nagle

Additional Music:

Lee Rosevere "Tech Toys", and music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Sponsors

This season of Origin Stories is made possible by support from Dixon Long, Diana McSherry, Jeanne Newman, Camilla Smith, and donors like you!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast.
0:08.0	I'm Meredith Johnson.
0:10.0	This is the sound of the forest, in the foothills of the Altai Mountains in Siberia,
0:23.6	outside of a place called Denisova Cave.
0:27.6	And I can imagine what it was like here, back in the Pleistocene.
0:32.6	If you stood in the opening of the cave and looked out, you would see a beautiful view.
0:39.7	A sparkling river flows not far below. If you look to the left, you would see a valley, which
0:46.7	opens up to the step that goes more or less uninterrupted, all the way to what is now Mongolia
0:52.2	and northern China on one side, and to Central Europe on the other.
0:57.3	Vast herds of migratory animals like bison and horses moved through the valley.
1:03.4	Fish swam in the river and the lush green forest spread out all around.
1:08.6	Some of the prehistoric people who lived in the Altai Mountains came to be known as the
1:13.0	Denisivans, and the story of their discovery and what it means is the topic of our episode today.
1:25.5	This is a recording from inside Denisovacave.
1:28.3	It was taken in 2011 during a conference.
1:36.3	Russian scientists are telling their visitors about something amazing they discovered in Denise of the cave, one summer day.
1:46.4	It was an insignificant-looking little scrap of a fossil, a tiny fragment of bone from the tip of a child's pinky finger.
1:55.6	It was about as big as a thin slice of a jelly bean, but hidden inside that little fragment was a secret history of humankind.
2:07.8	There are a few questions that are really basic for the human existence, and where do I come
2:13.4	from is probably one of the most important ones, you know, after like, what am I going to eat tonight?
2:18.5	Where do I come from is something that people have been asking for a very, very long time.
2:23.7	I'm sure, you know, Neanderthals wondered about it sometimes as well, like, why are we here?
	...

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