Denisovans or Homo Sapiens: Who Were the First to Settle (Permanently) on the Tibetan Plateau?

The Tibetan Plateau has long been considered one of the last places to be populated by people in their migration around the globe. A new paper by archaeologists at UC Davis highlights that our extinct cousins, the Denisovans, reached the “roof of the world” about 160,000 years ago — 120,000 years earlier than previous estimates for our species — and even contributed to our adaptation to high altitude.

On Early Human Migration, Geography and Culture

UC Davis anthropologist Alexander Harcourt sums up the latest research on early human migration around the planet, saying that Homo sapiens left Africa earlier than previously thought and our diverse cultures have been heavily influenced by geography.