Today we are beginning to glimpse the characteristics of the Denisovans and the outlines of the immense empire that this species had carved out for itself in Asia. A scientific adventure vividly retraced by the paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and the scientific journalist François Savatier.Hervé Morin, “The World”
Synopsis
In December 2010 the scientific community was hit by exceptional news: unknown human DNA had been discovered. In a Siberian cave, in the Denisova area, anthropologists have unearthed the fossil fragment of a phalanx, certainly human, and from inside they have been able to extract genetic material: it is not A wise man and not even of Homo neanderthalensis. It’s something else entirely.
Therefore, 50,000 years ago Sapiens encountered Neanderthals, but also another human, a new species, defined for the first time only by its genes, which for now does not even have a scientific name. This eastern brother of ours seems to have populated a vast geographical area ranging from Siberia to the Philippines.
But when? Where did these humans come from and how did they live? And how do we explain the fact that today the inhabitants of Asia carry up to 5% of that DNA?
Silvana Condemi and François Savatier return to talk to us about human prehistory, analyzing in detail this third, mysterious human species. From the “dragon man” to the latest discoveries of paleogenetics, passing through the pithecanthropus and the very unfortunate Maba man, the two authors present us with an unprecedented epic and rewrite the history of human colonization of our planet.
