Recently, led by Chen Fahu, the academic leader of the Environmental Archaeology Team of Lanzhou University, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and team member Zhang Dongju, the research result of Xiahe Denisovans jointly participated by many foreign scientific research institutes, together with the other research results of the Denisovans, was selected as one of the top ten news of the year 2019 by Science News.The discovery of the Xiahe fossil has moved the earliest time for prehistoric human activities on the Tibetan Plateau from 40,000 years to 160,000 years ago.As important archeological evidence, the Xiahe fossil has verified the speculation that the Denisovans were widely distributed in East Asia, providing a scientific basis for the qualitative reconstruction of Denisovan skeletal morphology and Denisovan portrait.
The Environmental Archaeology Team (EAT) of Lanzhou University was set up by Academician Chen Fahu in the middle 1990s, and the "Central Asia and Northwest Environmental Archaeology Research Center" was established. The research direction covers the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and historical environmental archaeology. Outstanding scientific achievements have been made in the fields of the process and driving force for the human settlement spatial spread to the Tibetan Plateau, the history of East-West exchanges in Eurasia, and the relationship between the evolution of the Silk Road civilization and climate change.
The research result on the Xiahe fossil published by the EAT of Lanzhou University was selected into the top ten news of Science News in 2019, demonstrating that the achievement has been highly recognized by the international academic community, and also showing the international leading level on the study of prehistoric human activities of the EAT of Lanzhou University. At present, Zhang Dongju is leading the team to conduct a formal archeological excavation at the Baishiya Karst Cave where Xiahe jaw was discovered. The research on Xiahe Denisovan will be further implemented.
