FYI: Here are the Lat-Long, and if you go to Google Earth there are Panoramio images: 51º23’51”N – 84º40’34”. Some of the pics show the arkies and the floor sectioned off.

There seem to be three caves at least. At least three different ones in the images. Which cave the X-woman was found in, I wasn’t able to tell.

From what I can tell of the Cyrillic name of the nearby settlement or town, it is named Denisova. A “Denisova, Altai” search only turned up this one location, so one would think this is the same place.

Well, will this one do?

I, too, immediately thought about the almas. I wondered whether the almas is likely to have mtDNA showing twice the divergence from modern humans that Neanderthals show? We don’t know enough about the almas to answer the question. The possibility of a link is certainly worth investigating. I wonder if the nuclear DNA studies still underway will give us any more clues.
I never thought much of the Zana story: I have yet to read where a qualified scientist proved the skull of her descendant was outside the parameters for modern humans. (If I am wrong on this, please point me to the paper.) Still, the almas stories make the creatures sound like hairier, less developed versions of ourselves.
If I were to rank the assorted crypto-primates based on they probability of their being currently surviving flesh and blood animals we will eventually discover for science, I would place the almas second after orang-pendek. My only problem with the almas is that, even given its rugged habitat, the local accounts gathered up by cryptozoologists make it sound like the creatures, if not common, are not rare enough to be thought remarkable, and we should have better evidence than we do.

Best example i can come up with relevant to previous comments is the Neanderthal, all of my department will say they don’t know how hairy Neanderthals were, because the Mitochondrial DNA does not show that. Theories are the obvious just like us to completely hairy; but no one will say it is one or the other. Even recent evidence of Neanderthal make-up containers does not prove it either way, does prove what we all known that Neanders more and more that they possess a behavioural cognitive pattern closer to Homo Sapien’s.

My point being Scientist in the past were stuck to one thought, but not anymore for the majority of them.

Sorry if anything i say seems offensive, just i felt i needed to distinguish between the original report. And that all scientist are not stuck in one way.

As to ignorance and arrogance, although I admit to a bit of attitude (maybe that’s frustration; believe me I sure understand proponents when it comes to that) in my own post, it’s not the ignorance I’m knocking.

Ignorance is simply the state of not knowing; the arrogance is in presuming and stating that you know when you don’t. The fossil picture of hominids – shoot, primates in general – is at best sketchy. While I am OK with scientists stating theories based on what is known, the attitude that “this doesn’t exist” or “this is improbable” (with no support for that statement) is, well, it’s not a stance well supported by the history of science.

We’re just seeing here, once again, that an open mind is essential, and that when you don’t know, “I don’t know” is the appropriate answer.

Also i notice some comments on scientists being ignorant and arrogant, i have to say some of my tutors are foremost experts in Prehistory and they are neither ignorant or arrogant. They understnad that there are fossil evidence for new human species to be discovered, they as most scientists, don’t deal in definates; they do deal in theories and finding proof.

Believe we’ve discussed this in our department, they wouldn’t say it was a new species unless they knew.

The new mtdna details can now be entered in the database for comparison with other samples and may turn out to include some unknowns and merit further checks of samples which have provenance but have been dismissed as human and the new results were outside the range the analysts considered. I look forward to the dtermination of the nuclear DNA-on its way-and whatever it means.

I note there is a tendency to minimise this discovery by saying the sample is only a ”pinky”, it is so much more, a universe of imformation on permanent record in this small package of DNA. I do agree it is early days but permit me to get rather excited and toast Savante Paabo and others!

Please see below for a more scientific explantion than my amatuer efforts
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18699-meet-xwoman-a-possible-new-species-of-human.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn18699

Don’t forget the mysterious Ötzi – an individual with mtDNA so rare it hasn’t turned up in any other human remains or passed down to any known descendants – and the world, even a mere 14,000 years ago suddenly begins to look more and more like the world depicted by so-called mythology and fairy tales, peopled with mysterious races of giants, dwarfs, elves, halflings, etc.

Otzi is not all that mysterious and has been confirmed to be an ancient European.

All these posts (so quickly) show how interesting this story is about to become.

If National Geographic wanted a commentary from a Cryptozoologist for the “expedition” I am sure they are planning as I type. I wonder who they would choose? Of course MonsterQuest will probably beat them to the cave.

I have a feeling Loren did not mention her name for a reason, but I am not sure why yet.

But there is that “legend” of the wild woman that Myra Shackley has also spoken of. “Zana” still has grandchildren in the remote Georgian village where she was captured and “impregnated” by the local horn dogs. I have read that the skull of “one” of her sons “Khwit” was taken from its grave and may be in a glass case in the Moscow State University Institute of Anthropology.

Of course Loren knows this as you can see at this 2007 link to his article.

What I am getting at is that it would be interesting to see the results of a comparison test of the mitochondrial sequences from the Khwit skull and the Denisova Hominin. Would there be lanes of similarity once you factored out the villager mix?