Handprints were found 220,000 years ago on the Tibetan plateau, clearly visible on the hard stone slabs, who is the owner of the handprints?

Scientists have become interested in the Tibetan plateau after learning about handprints on stone slabs.

To the general public, a slab with a handprint may seem like an ordinary historical relic, but to scientists, it can reveal the living conditions and spirituality of people at that time.

Through international cooperation, the slate paintings found on the Tibetan Plateau can be traced back to the middle Pleistocene, 169,000-226,000 years ago at the earliest.

The scientists used uranium-series dating to determine that it is not too problematic in terms of time.

What is surprising is that the man-made content shown in this slab is three to four times older than the creations in Indonesian, French, and Spanish cave paintings.

It is clear that the handprint on the slab was not placed on it by chance; it is more like a creation.

If so, it is perhaps the oldest artistic creation in human history.

Studied in 2008 by scientists studying the behavior of human ancestors at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, the five handprints and five symmetrical footprints in the slab were imprinted on limestone.

It is a freshwater limestone that gradually hardened over time due to the deposition of hot springs nearby.

That is, it was still soft, like clay, when humans created it.

The marks imprinted on the slab are a smooth and somewhat inclined surface, which is not something that a person accidentally touched or fell in some strange position.

The associated fossil record, as well as human activity, suggests that the arrangement of the Tibetan plateau's stone plate prints is unusual and spans a considerable amount of time.

Historians say that while footprints are common in the record of human activity, handprints are much less commonly represented.

The wall panel art tradition and Tibetan lithography is an immobile art represented by hand stenciling on cave walls.

As mentioned earlier, such art dates back tens of thousands of years. Uranium series dating suggests that the slabs were created in contemporary times.

Scientists speculate that the hand and footprints would have come from children, with the child who made the handprints being about 12 years old and the child who made the footprints being about 7 years old.

But more than the discussion of ancient human art, researchers are concerned with the question of whether the humans who created the slabs were Homo sapiens?

It is important to know that during this period, a variety of ancient humans lived on Earth, and the emergence of Homo sapiens was already late in the history of human evolution.

Denisovans in the highlands

Scientists have in recent years supported the theory that it was Denisovans who created the art of stone slabs by studying the skeletal remains of the Tibetan plateau.

This is a very mysterious race and is an ancient relative of Neanderthals.

An early example of this was in 1980 when scientists analyzed protein extracted from the fossilized jawbone of Xiahe on the Tibetan Plateau, indicating that Denisovans lived in the plateau region.

Studies of the jawbone and ancient human activity at Denisova Cave showed that the ancient proteins in the jawbone were highly degraded, a clear distinction from modern protein samples that may have been contaminated.

Heavy carbonate crusts attached to the jawbone, which scientists found to be at least 160,000 years old by applying U-series dating to the crusts.

The Xiahe jawbone is the earliest ancient human fossil from the Tibetan Plateau, predating the oldest known Paleolithic I from the region by 120,000 years.

The comparative evidence comes mainly from the "fourth Denisovan", with the main sample coming from the DNA of Denisovan 2 extracted from Denisovan caves in the Altai Mountains.

The Neanderthal activity in the Altai region, where the Denisovans are distributed in Asia, and elsewhere, suggests that the two groups interacted with each other.

Analysis of their genome suggests that Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals and with older human groups in locations where human lineage diverged earlier.

The Denisovan activity also made a genetic contribution to modern populations in the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania, as well as to lower levels of populations in continental Asia and the Americas.

The interbreeding of races has contributed to some of the characteristics of present-day humans, and in the case of the Denisovans, their adaptation to the high altitudes of Tibet has allowed them to live there for a long time.

Denisovans living in the highlands

In the past, most of what was known about the Denisovans came from DNA evidence because of the small number of samples.

It took the first identification in 2010 to finally establish their identity, as well as the manifestation of their activities.

Mitochondrial DNA extracted from fossilized finger bone samples of young Denisovan girls by scientists showed that the most closely related to the race were Neanderthals.

DNA from samples from the White Cliffs cave on the Tibetan Plateau showed that Denisovans had Neanderthal-like physical and facial features, and had dark skin, eyes, and hair.

But their molars are a little different, as the Denisovan 2 sample from 1984 shows.

They have no molar nodules and are larger, and the crowns are almost completely worn, with only very thin enamel margins preserved on the buccal, proximal-middle, and lingual sides.

The only preserved morphological feature of the crown is a small remnant of the buccal sulcus, and the root is mostly resorbed, with only the very end of the pile preserved on the proximal buccal side of the proximal lingual river.

The exposed pulp chamber shows five diverticula into the crown, and the resorption of the roots and the fact that the specimen flaked naturally indicate that the owner of the tooth was 10 to 12 years old.

The study of molars cannot help but bring to mind the middle to late Pleistocene archaic humans and southern archaeopteryx.

The artistry of archaic humans still DNA research evidence that Denisovans and Neanderthals would have shared a common ancestor, who was a Heidelberg man and probably lived in Africa.

About 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, a part of the Heidelberg man left Africa and expanded to Eurasia, and then the population split activities.

Those who moved westward to Europe evolved into Neanderthals, and part of those who moved eastward to Asia came to the Tibetan Plateau and became Denisovans.

And the human ancestors who remained in Africa evolved into ourselves, Homo sapiens.

Modern humans and Denisovans probably first met in Eurasia about 40,000-60,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens had already begun their African migrations.

Scientists believe that Denisovans and modern humans should have interbred, among them Melanesians, Australian aborigines, and black Filipinos.

The relevant distribution shows that there are Denisovans in Eurasia, the Philippines, New Guinea, and other regions, although the relevant claims need further research to prove.

In addition, analysis of their DNA has shown that the genetic diversity of the Denisovans' genome appears to be low, which means that their population may never be large.

Some East Asian groups today, especially Melanesians may have inherited up to 5% of their genetic material from the Denisovans.

Similar genetic inheritance exists among Tibetans and Han Chinese, and a 2014 study showed that Sherpas likely inherited a "super athlete" genetic mutation from Denisovans.

This mutation helps them breathe easily at high altitudes.

Today we still don't know how the Denisovans disappeared, but they were once an amazing race, able to survive at high altitudes.

In addition to the hand and footprint tablets, the Denisovans also used quite a lot of stone tools and mainly Paleolithic objects, such as grinding heads, chisels, and other tools.

There are also some bone tools and some ornaments, marble rings, ivory rings, and ivory pendants.

All of these indicate that the race had a good look at life and that they would have had a culture of their own.

The Denisovans predate most humans on Earth, and this slab leaves scientists and historians with questions today about what anatomy can reveal about their physical physiognomy.

But more humanistically, does the slab belong to art?

All human cultures have some form of art and music, and art is one of the universal cultural rules.

Art may have its origins in leisure, its purpose is simple enjoyment, a process full of fun.

Behind the slate, it is two children playing happily in the mud, their parents perhaps watching their children.

Such a presence across time and space shows us the colors of ancient human life in the past, a superb human picking.