The World Before Us: How Science is Revealing a New Story of Our Human Origins
Tom Higham is Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. He was part of the team that found and identified a previously unknown hominin – the Denisovans – named after the Denisova Cave in Siberia where the first remains were found. A further discovery was a first-generation offspring of two different types of hominin, a Neanderthal and a Denisovan. This hybrid was identified by DNA testing in 2010 from a piece of her finger bone discovered in 2008. Finding an ancient bone that turned out to be a hybrid of a Neanderthal mother and Denisovan father was the greatest day in the career of everyone working on the project. Higham describes his reaction: “I wish I had a video of the moment I was told this news; I think my jaw must have dropped open as I sat stunned and wide-eyed. We all were. I was thinking, how could this be? There must be a mistake, a mix-up, some kind of contamination or othe...