Title: DENISOVA CAVE: A PROMINENT PALEOLITHIC SITE
IN NORTH ASIA
Author(s): Aboualhassan BAKRY
Journal: SHEDET(Annual Peer-Reviewed Journal Issued
By The Faculty Of Archaeology, Fayoum University)
Issue: 4 Date: 2017
Pages: 1-21
Cite as: Aboualhassan BAKRY. (2017). Denisova Cave:
A Prominent Paleolithic Site in North Asia. SHEDET(Annual Peer-Reviewed Journal
Issued By The Faculty Of Archaeology, Fayoum University), 4 (2017) pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.36816/shedet.004.01
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DENISOVA CAVE: A PROMINENT PALEOLITHIC SITE IN NORTH ASIA
Aboualhassan BAKRY
Denisova Cave is situated in the Altai region of Siberia (Russia). It contains
more than twenty layers of excavated artifacts indicative hominin occupation
dating as far back as 280,000 years BP and as recent as the Middle Ages. The
archaeological materials from the Pleistocene deposits are some of the most
important sources of information regarding the Paleolithic age in Northern Asia.
In the Pleistocene layers of the cave a finger bone (2008) was unearthed within
stratum 11 belonging to a six or seven year-old unknown hominin girl that dates
back roughly between 48,000 and 30,000 years. Later it was established that this
bone belonged to a human whose mitochondrial DNA is distinct from the DNA of
Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans; it belongs to a new kind of
hominins called Homo sapiens altaiensis – “Denisovans”.
This paper aims to shed more light on the analysis of the materials discovered
within the Pleistocene layers of the cave (lithis tools, faunal, and human
remains), demonstrating how multidisciplinary research and applying the
scientific method in analysing a single site could reveal such unexpected,
previously unknown facts, thus casting a new light on Paleolithic life in this
region of North Asia.