Do Red Deer Cave People Survive With Yeti Neanderthals in Siberia?

Summary: Nobody knows the species status or ultimate fate of Red Deer Cave People in Laomaocao (Longlin) and Maludong Caves of China of 14,000 to 10,500 years ago.

Did Red Deer Cave people survive as interbred species in Siberia's Denisova Cave? Researchers have now sequenced the entire Denisova genome using 10 milligrams of a finger bone fragment found in Denisova Cave in Southern Siberia; "Caption This is the Denisova Cave entrance, located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia. The cave was inhabitated at various times by three different groups of early humans: Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans."; credit Bence Viola: No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Red Deer Cave People are unlikely to survive other than as isolated relicts in such remote areas as Siberia, according to an article published Dec. 18, 2015, in The Conversation news source.

Darren Curnoe, associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, bases his conclusions upon expertise in evolutionary biology and Red Deer Cave People. Dr. Curnoe coins the name in terms of a mysterious population of cave-dwellers from 14,000 years ago in what is now Yunnan Province in southwest China. The name describes a now extinct, large red deer species whose bones Maludong Cave, 6 kilometers (3.73 miles) from Mengxi, preserves alongside human artifacts and bones.

The animal bones evidence processing for meals.

Red Deer Cave People fit into the paleoanthropological category of archaic or pre-modern human populations even though scientists disagree on the exact status of that inclusion.

The fate of the Red Deer Cave People generates as much controversy and mystery as their status as natural variant within Homo species or separate species. Laomaocao (Longlin) Cave in south central China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region hints at emigrations of Red Deer Cave People from Yunnan by about 10,500 years ago. Dr. Curnoe interprets the Cave’s bones as indicative of interbreeding with modern humans whose mating with Denisovans in Siberia and with Neanderthals in Eurasia geneticists acknowledge.

Scientists generally judge Homo sapiens as jumpstarting the extinctions of archaic human species.

Paleoanthropologists know of an archaic human species, Homo floresiensis, whose nickname of Hobbit people reflects the skeletons’ small cranial capacities and 3-feet-5-inch-high (1.94-meter-tall), 55-pound (24.95-kilogram) bodies.

Radiocarbon lets two co-discoverers from Australia’s University of New England and five from the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology date Hobbits from 97,000 to 13,000 years ago. Dr. Curnoe mentions Liang Bua limestone cave’s Hobbits as existing into the 20th century and inspiring Ebu Gogo (Granny Glutton) stories of Flores Island’s Nage people. He notes possible Hobbit survivors of Flores Island volcanism despite the stegodon (dwarf elephant), the population’s main food source, going extinct during eruptions 12,000 years ago.

Recent sustainability of Flores’s Hobbits offers survivalist scenarios for Red Deer Cave People.

Dr. Curnoe places similar prospects of Red Deer Cave People’s continued sustainability or modern extinction within the context of Neanderthal-like Yeti sightings in isolated, remote Siberia.

Dr. Curnoe questions broad-nosed, flat-faced, jaw-jutting, thick-skulled, wide-browed humans escaping detection: “[W]ith a large-bodied species like humans, you would think it would be difficult to miss.”

Ji Xueping, co-lead researcher and Professor at the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, reveals the same cautious assessment: “Its [thigh bone’s] young identity suggests the possibility that primitive-looking humans could have survived until very late in our evolution, but we need to be careful as it is just one bone.”

Heat-degraded DNA stands in the way of immediately resolving Red Deer Cave mysteries.

Darren Curnoe, University of New South Wales assistant professor, and three co-researchers find "a scenario of hybridization with archaic hominins" as the best explanation for "highly unusual" shape of cranium in south central China's Laomaocao (Longlin) Cave; Figure 1, "Longlin 1 cranium: (a) anterior view, (b) left lateral view, (c) superior view and (d) inferior view (Photos taken by the authors)": Darren Curnoe et al., CC BY 4.0 International, via Scientific Reports

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Did Red Deer Cave people survive as interbred species in Siberia's Denisova Cave? Researchers have now sequenced the entire Denisova genome using 10 milligrams of a finger bone fragment found in Denisova Cave in Southern Siberia; "Caption This is the Denisova Cave entrance, located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia. The cave was inhabitated at various times by three different groups of early humans: Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans."; credit Bence Viola: No usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/901120; (EurekAlert! news release URL @ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/767915); (former URL @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/40524.php)

Darren Curnoe, University of New South Wales assistant professor, and three co-researchers find "a scenario of hybridization with archaic hominins" as the best explanation for "highly unusual" shape of cranium in south central China's Laomaocao (Longlin) Cave; Figure 1, "Longlin 1 cranium: (a) anterior view, (b) left lateral view, (c) superior view and (d) inferior view (Photos taken by the authors)": Darren Curnoe et al., CC BY 4.0 International, via Scientific Reports @ http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12408; specific image URL @ https://www.nature.com/articles/srep12408/figures/1

For further information:

Brown, P.; Sutikna, T.; Morwood, M. J.; Soejono, R. P.; Jatmiko; Saptomo, E. Wayhu; and Due, Rokus Awe. 28 October 2004. “A New Small-Bodied Hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia.” Nature, vol. 431: 1055–1061. DOI: 10.1038/nature02999
Available @ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7012/full/nature02999.html

The Conversation @ConversationEDU. 17 December 2015. "A new bone discovery of the Red Deer Cave people' suggests a mysterious species of human." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU/status/677590846477221890

Curnoe, Darren. 18 December 2015. “Bone Suggests ‘Red Deer Cave People’ a Mysterious Species of Human.” Phys.Org > Other Sciences > Archaeology & Fossils.
Available @ http://phys.org/news/2015-12-bone-red-deer-cave-people.html

Curnoe, Darren; Xueping Ji; Paul S. C. Taçon; Ge Yaozheng. 23 July 2015. “Possible Signatures of Hominin Hybridization from the Early Holocene of Southwest China.” Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 12408 (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep12408
Available @ http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12408

GeoBeats News. 18 December 2015. "Thigh Bone Discovery Suggests Late Survival Of Pre-Modern Human Species." YouTube.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GtL0VN11k

Hall, Natalia. 18 December 2015. “’Red Deer Cave People’ Bone Shows Link with an Archaic Human Species.” Northern Californian > Science.
Available @ http://northerncalifornian.com/content/55394-‘red-deer-cave-people’-bone-shows-link-archaic-human-species

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 December 2015. "Red Deer Cave People As Archaic Humans in Southwest China." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/12/red-deer-cave-people-as-archaic-humans.html

“New Species of Human May Have Shared Our Caves – and Beds.” New Scientist > Daily News > Humans > 17 December 2015.
Available @ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28687-new-species-of-human-may-have-shared-our-caves-and-beds/

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Osborne, Hannah. 17 December 2015. “Red Deer Cave People: Bone Discovery Suggests Ancient Human Species Survived until Last Ice Age.” International Business Times > Science > Anthropology.
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“'Red Deer Cave People' Bone Points to Mysterious Species of Pre-Modern Human.” Phys.Org > Other Sciences > Archaeology & Fossils > December 17, 2015.
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