Research on remains provides initial indications that the intermingling between the early humans in Indonesia and Siberia occurred earlier than previously thought.
Genetic traces in the body of a young woman who died 7,000 years ago provide the first indication that the mixing of the early humans in Indonesia and those from distant Siberia occurred much earlier than previously assumed.
Theories about early human migration in Asia could be altered by research published in the scientific journal Nature in August after analyzing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), or the genetic fingerprint of the woman ritually buried in an Indonesian cave, the news agency said Reuters on Wednesday.
“There is a possibility that the Wallacea region could have been a meeting point for two human species, between the Denisovans and the early Homo Sapiens,” said Basran Burhan, an archaeologist from Griffith University, Australia.
Burhan, one of the scientists who took part in the research, was referring to the region of Indonesia, which includes South Sulawesi, where the body, with stones in the hands and buried by the pelvis, was found in the Leang Pannige cave complexes.
The Denisova people were a group of ancient people named after a cave in Siberia where their remains were first identified in 2010. Scientists know little about them, and even the details of their appearance are not widely known.
Besse’s DNA, as the researchers called the young woman in Indonesia using the term for a newborn girl in the regional Bugis language, is one of the few well-preserved specimens found in the tropics.
It turned out that while it came from the Austronesian peoples common in Southeast Asia and Oceania, it also had genetic traces of Denisova, the scientists said.
“Genetic analysis shows that this preneolithic collector … shares most of the genetic drifts and morphological similarities with today’s Papuan and indigenous Australian groups,” they said in the paper.
The remains are currently being held at a university in the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi.
Besse’s DNA, as the researchers called the young woman in Indonesia, is one of the few well-preserved specimens found in the tropics [File: Abd Rahman Muchtar/Reuters]
Until recently, scientists thought that North Asians like the Denisova people arrived in Southeast Asia about 3,500 years ago.
Besse’s DNA changes theories about such patterns of early human migration and can also provide insights into the origins of the Papuan and indigenous Australian populations who share the DNA of the Denisova group.
“Migration theories will change, as will race theories,” says Iwan Sumantri, a lecturer at Hasanuddin University in South Sulawesi, who is also involved in the project.
Besse’s remains are the first sign of Denisovans among the Austronesians, Indonesia’s oldest ethnic group, he added.
“Now try to imagine how they spread and distributed their genes so they could reach Indonesia,” said Sumantri.
