A Middle Pleistocene Denisovan molar from the Annamite Chain of northern Laos

Fabrice Demeter (1, 2) , Clément Zanolli (3) , Kira E Westaway (4) , Renaud Joannes-Boyau (5, 6) , Philippe Duringer (7) , Mike W. Morley (8) , Frido Welker (1) , Patrick L Rüther (9) , Matthew Skinner (10, 11) , Hugh Mccoll (1) , Charleen Gaunitz (1) , Lasse Vinner (1) , Tyler E. Dunn (12) , Jesper Velgaard Olsen (9) , Martin Sikora (1) , Jean-Luc Ponche (13) , Eric Suzzoni (14) , Sébastien Frangeul (14) , Quentin Boesch (7) , Pierre-Olivier Antoine (15) , Lei Pan (16, 17) , Song Xing (16, 18) , Jian-Xin Zhao (19) , Richard M Bailey (20) , Souliphane Boualaphane (14) , Phonephanh Sichanthongtip (14) , Daovee Sihanam (14) , Elise Patole-Edoumba (21) , Françoise Aubaile-Sallenave (2) , Françoise Crozier (22) , Nicolas Bourgon (11) , Alexandra Zachwieja (23) , Thonglith Luangkhoth (14) , Viengkeo Souksavatdy (14) , Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy (14) , Enrico Cappellini (1) , Anne-Marie Bacon (24) , Jean-Jacques Hublin (11, 25) , Eske Willerslev (1, 26, 27, 28) , Laura Shackelford (29)

1 Globe Institute
2 EA - Éco-Anthropologie
3 PACEA - De la Préhistoire à l'Actuel : Culture, Environnement et Anthropologie
4 Macquarie University [Sydney]
5 SCU - Southern Cross University
6 UJ - University of Johannesburg [South Africa]
7 IPGS - Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg
8 Flinders University [Adelaide, Australia]
9 CPR - Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research
10 SAC - School of Anthropology and Conservation [University of Kent]
11 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology [Leipzig]
12 Creighton University School of Medicine
13 LIVE - Laboratoire Image, Ville, Environnement
14 Auteur indépendant
15 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
16 Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins
17 State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy
18 CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment
19 UQ [All campuses : Brisbane, Dutton Park Gatton, Herston, St Lucia and other locations] - The University of Queensland
20 SoGE - School of Geography and the Environment [Oxford]
21 Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de La Rochelle
22 UMR DIADE - Diversité, adaptation, développement des plantes
23 University of Minnesota [Duluth]
24 BABEL - Biologie, anthropologie, biométrie, épigénétique, lignées : De la diversité des populations à l'individu, de l'identification à l'identité
25 Collège de France - Chaire Paléoanthropologie
26 CAM - University of Cambridge [UK]
27 The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute [Cambridge]
28 SDU - University of Southern Denmark
29 UIUC - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [Urbana]

The Pleistocene presence of the genus Homo in continental Southeast Asia is primarily evidenced by a sparse stone tool record and rare human remains. Here we report a Middle Pleistocene hominin specimen from Laos, with the discovery of a molar from the Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra Cave) limestone cave in the Annamite Mountains. The age of the fossil-bearing breccia ranges between 164-131 kyr, based on the Bayesian modelling of luminescence dating of the sedimentary matrix from which it was recovered, U-series dating of an overlying flowstone, and U-series-ESR dating of associated faunal teeth. Analyses of the internal structure of the molar in tandem with palaeoproteomic analyses of the enamel indicate that the tooth derives from a young, likely female, Homo individual. The close morphological affinities with the Xiahe specimen from China indicate that they belong to the same taxon and that Tam Ngu Hao 2 most likely represents a Denisovan.

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Fabrice Demeter, Clément Zanolli, Kira E Westaway, Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Philippe Duringer, et al.. A Middle Pleistocene Denisovan molar from the Annamite Chain of northern Laos. Nature Communications, 2022, 13, pp.2557. ⟨10.1038/s41467-022-29923-z⟩. ⟨insu-03824801⟩