199T Poster - Population Genetics
Thursday June 09, 9:15 PM - 10:00 PM

Authors:
Elena Zavala ¹; Zenobia Jacobs ^2,3; Benjamin Vernot ¹; Michael Shunkov ⁴; Maxim Kozlikin ⁴; Anatoly Derevianko ⁴; Elena Essel ¹; Cesare de Fillipo ¹; Sarah Nagel ¹; Julia Richter ¹; Frédéric Romagné ¹; Anna Schmidt ¹; Bo Li ^2,3; Kieran O'Gorman ²; Viviane Slon ¹; Janet Kelso ¹; Svante Pääbo ¹; Richard Roberts ^2,3; Matthias Meyer ¹

Affiliations:
1) Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; 2) Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia; 3) Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia; 4) Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, Novosibirsk, Russia

Keywords:
Ancient DNA

The integration of ancient DNA with zooarchaeology and paleoecology allows us to contextualize human evolutionary history within the environments that they lived in. However, these studies are currently limited by the rare discovery of hominin remains and the time and resources required for the classification of faunal remains. The discovery that DNA from Pleistocene mammals, including hominins, can be retrieved from sediments has opened up the possibility of examining the relationship between faunal composition and hominin occupation at archaeological sites. We explore this possibility at Denisova Cave, a site in the Altai Mountains, which is thought to be a contact zone for different faunal and hominin groups. This site is of particular interest for hominin evolutionary history as not only Neandertal, but also Denisovan remains have been identified there. In addition, debates remain as to who were the makers of jewelry and other artefacts found in the Initial Upper Paleolithic layers as no early modern human remains have been found at the site. We tested 728 samples from the cave’s Pleistocene layers using a fully automated workflow for DNA extraction, library preparation and hybridization capture, for the presence of both ancient faunal and hominin mitochondrial (mt)DNA. Ancient mammalian mtDNA was identified in 685 (94%) samples and ancient hominin mtDNA was identified in 175 (24%) samples. This rich data set enable us to identify changes in the relative proportions of DNA from various mammalian families and a turnover between the types of bears and mtDNA haplogroups of hyaenas at the site. In addition, we found shifts in the presence of mtDNA from different hominin groups, which appeared to coincide with past climatic changes. This study demonstrates the potential of using sediment DNA for increasing our understanding of past faunal diversity and hominin occupations at archaeological sites.