On December 19, Science announced the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year 2019. After being listed in the "Top 10 worldwide Archeological Discoveries" in 2019 selected by the Archaeology and in the "Top 10 News" in 2019 selected by the Science News, the academic achievement titled "Denisovan come into focus" was selected into the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of the year 2019 by Science.(https://vis.sciencemag.org/breakthrough2019/) The study was acombination of Xiahe Denisovans studies from the Environmental Archaeology Team of Lanzhou University and the study of thequalitative reconstruction of Denisovans bones based on DNA methylation models from another team.In the public online voting, the research of Denisovans ranked first, demonstrating the intense attention and recognition by the academic community and the public.
Scientific Breakthrough Championshipin 2019 - Black Hole image
The nine scientific breakthroughs are tied for second place after the first Black Hole image
In the 1980s, a Buddhist monk in Xiahe County, Gansu Province found an odd human jaw bone in Baishiya Karst Cave. From then on, Academician Fahu Chen, together with scholars from many institutions at home and abroad, conducted comprehensivemultidisciplinaryresearch of the fossil in chronology, physiology, molecular archeology, living environment, and human adaptation. The results show thatthe mandible is the first Denisovans fossil to be found except that in Denisovans cave of the Altai Mountains. The mandible is also the evidence of the earliest human activity found on the Tibetan Plateau, moving the period of the earliest human activity on the Tibetan Plateau to 160,000 years ago. As important archeological evidence, the Xiahe fossil have verified the speculation that the Denisovans were widely distributed in East Asia, providing a scientific basis for the qualitative reconstruction of Denisovan skeletal morphology and Denisovan portrait, which is of great significance for the study of ancient human evolution in East Asia and the adaptation of ancient human to high altitude environments.
