Original subtitles

A shocking discovery is made on a Mount Everest glacier.

At first, they think it might be a piece of equipment or a small pack left behind

from an expedition.

But as they get closer, they realize it's actually a hiking boot.

Remarkably, it still contains part of a human foot.

But who did it belong to? And how long has it been up here?

A remarkable carving is uncovered in Norway.

It looks like a ship with 38 vertical lines that appear to be within the hull,

and based on its weathered appearance, it seems to be ancient.

This is an extraordinary discovery.

It's the most significant petroglyph uncovered in the last 125 years.

The question is, who etched it, and what does it represent?

Massive bones emerged from the ice on a remote Siberian island.

The ice cap that once covered the entire island had split into two parts,

revealed several square miles of the island's surface for the first time in

thousands of years.

Scattered across that newly exposed ground were all these great big bones.

One thing is for certain. There were a lot of remains present, and the site

looked like a mass whale graveyard.

But how did all these whales end up here, dead in the same place?

These are the strangest mysteries trapped in the coldest places Lost

relics Forgotten treasures dark secrets

Locked in their icy tombs for ages But now as ice

melts around the world Their stories will finally be exposed

The border between Nepal and Tibet cuts through the eastern Himalayas.

Rising majestically in this remote region is Mount Everest.

Reaching 29,032 feet above sea level, it's the highest point on Earth.

The mountain stands so tall it pierces the jet stream.

At these altitudes, the air is dangerously thin, and the terrain is a

maze of rocky ridges, steep ice fields, and deep crevasses.

Glaciers slowly carve their way down the slopes, creating an ever-changing

landscape that's rugged and windswept. The cold up here is severe, and the

summit is often battered by winds that can top 100 miles per hour, making

survival a constant struggle.

Each year, thousands of climbers attempt to scale Everest.

It's one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Those who don't return from their climb are often preserved in the ice, their

bodies left locked in time.

Even so, the sheer scale and extreme challenges of the environment continue

to draw researchers, adventure seekers, and filmmakers from all over the world.

In September of 2024, a National Geographic documentary team led by

mountaineer Jimmy Chin is exploring just below Everest North Face on the central

Rongbuk Glacier.

Working their way across the area, they spot an unusual brown shape protruding

from the melting ice.

At first, they think it might be a piece of equipment or a small pack left behind

from an expedition.

But as they get closer, they realize it's actually a hiking boot.

And this one stands out for its odd and distinctive style.

The boot is made from thick leather and wood, with a pattern of hobnails

hammered into the sole.

It's a very specific design that dates back to an earlier era of

mountaineering, possibly as early as the 1920s.

Here's where it gets very interesting.

Inside the boot, they find the partial remains of a wool sock, and remarkably,

it still contains part of a human foot.

The preservation from the extreme altitude and frost is extraordinary.

But who did it belong to? And how long has it been up here?

As Chen gets a closer look, he's astonished to see a small name label.

It reads A.C. Irvine.

The team immediately recognizes the name.

Andrew Common Irvine, known as Sandy, was a British climber who vanished on

the mountain in 1924 on a British expedition led by renowned mountaineer

George Mallory.

Their mission was to become the first to summit the world's highest peak.

At the time, Irvine was just 22 years old, the youngest member of the team.

Born in Cheshire, England, he was a talented engineering student from

Oxford, a skilled outdoorsman, and a genius at troubleshooting mechanics.

His expertise with oxygen equipment made him invaluable to the expedition.

On June 8, 1924, Mallory and Irvine were last seen high on the mountain, moving

toward the summit before they disappeared from view.

If they succeeded in reaching the top, it would mean they conquered Everest 29

years before Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary achieved that extraordinary feat

in 1953.

So did Irvine and Mallory actually make it to the summit? Or did tragedy strike

before they could get there?

In 1999, mountaineer Conrad Anker was part of an expedition searching for

answers about the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine when he made a

stunning discovery.

At around 27,000 feet on Everest North Face, Anker spotted a body.

It was remarkably preserved by the extreme cold. The clothing had been

shredded by decades of wind, but the name tags sewn into the garments were

still visible.

And they revealed it was the body of George Mallory. Mallory's body was

mostly intact, but showed signs of serious injury.

A frayed climbing rope was looped around his waist, suggesting he and Irvine were

roped together during the climb.

His snow goggles were found in the front pocket of his jacket, indicating that

maybe Mallory died in the evening, possibly while descending from the

summit.

Another intriguing detail is that he had promised to leave a photograph of his

wife on the summit if he made it.

But when the climbers went through his belongings, that photograph was missing.

An exhaustive search of the area for Sandy Irvine or any other items turned

up nothing.

Mallory's body was found about 2,000 feet below the summit on the North Face.

Irvine's boot was discovered much lower on the central Rongbuk Glacier.

The two locations are separated by roughly 7,000 feet, steep ridges and

wide sweeps of ice and rock.

So what happened up there? Did they fall together? Did Irvine fall separately?

Or did something else go wrong?

George Mallory was part of the first British expedition to Everest in 1921.

In the years that followed, he focused on the mountain's north side, tracing

possible paths that might one day lead to the top.

The northeast ridge route follows the ridgeline up the north side of Everest.

Along it are three major obstacles called the Three Steps.

The first step is a rugged section of rocks and boulders about 40 feet high.

The second step is a 130-foot near-vertical rock wall.

And the third step is a 32-foot climb that leads to the steep snow fields of

the summit pyramid and the final push to the top.

The second step is extremely difficult and dangerous.

Even with a modern ladder and ropes, it's one of the hardest sections on the

mountain. Mallory took one look at it on an earlier climb and called it not

practicable. Without today's equipment, getting over it would have been almost

impossible.

Just days before Mallory and Irvine's climb, their teammate Edward Norton had

attempted to reach the summit by a different route.

Norton followed a series of ledges and gullies around the north face that form

what's now called the Norton Couloir, but ultimately never reached the summit.

If Mallory and Irvine followed that same route, they could have bypassed the

second step entirely and still reached the top.

In fact, Mallory even left a note for the expedition photographer John Knoll,

telling him to watch for them either crossing the rock band under the pyramid

or going up skyline.

That description matches the North Face Traverse, and it could explain why

Irvine's boot was found so far down the mountain.

A fall from that face would naturally send debris towards the central Rongbak

Glacier.

But the last person to see Irvine and Mallory alive was their teammate, a

geologist named Noel Odell. On the afternoon of June 8th, he spotted two

small figures moving strongly across a large rock step high on the ridge. Most

likely, this was the second step. So based on this eyewitness account, it's

unlikely that they attempted the route that Norton had tried days before.

Also, in the years since, climbers have found an ice axe believed to belong to

Irvine, along with an oxygen bottle from their expedition.

Both were found just below the first step and line up with their likely

route.

All of these discoveries taken together point toward the northeast ridge route.

In 1960, a Chinese expedition ventured onto Everest's remote north side.

a part of the mountain that had seen little exploration for decades.

They were also the first in history to reach the summit from that side, the

same face Mallory and Irvine had tried to climb nearly 40 years earlier.

It was a huge achievement for China's national pride.

Years later, the deputy leader from that expedition revealed seeing a dead body

high up on the mountain, in a slot in the rock near where Irvine's ice axe was

discovered. In 1979, a climber from another Chinese expedition to Everest

named Wang Hongbao made a startling revelation.

Wang told a Japanese climber that back in 1975, when he was on the mountain,

he'd come across the body of a man. He said the frozen corpse was near their

camp at around 26,570 feet.

The clothing was old-fashioned, and it crumbled when he touched it.

The day after that conversation, Wang Hongbao was killed in an avalanche.

So he never got the chance to say where exactly the body was located.

For years, there's been speculation that Chinese authorities found Sandy Irvine's

body and his camera.

Irvine was known to be carrying a Kodak vest pocket camera.

If that camera was ever recovered and the film inside was still intact, it

might contain photos proving Mallory and Irvine reached the summit.

That would mean they did it decades before the Chinese team's historic climb

from the north, and could take away their place in history as the first to

summit from that side.

But there's no evidence supporting Chinese involvement.

No official record has ever surfaced, and it's based on secondhand accounts.

And if Irvine's body had been moved or buried on the mountain, his boot almost

certainly wouldn't have ended up where it was found.

So how else could it have ended up in that location?

Everest's natural forces may provide the explanation.

Avalanches are common on Everest, especially in that area.

A rockfall or avalanche could have sent Irvine's body hundreds or even thousands

of feet down onto the glacier below.

Once lying on the ice and snow, his body would have gotten locked into the

glacier itself.

Over the decades, the glacier would have carried the remains downslope.

until recent warming caused the ice to retreat, revealing his boot, which had

been hidden for nearly a century and was likely separated from the rest of his

body by these powerful natural forces.

But as for what happened that day in June 1924, there are a lot of open

questions. Were Mallory and Irvine tethered together?

And did they fall to their deaths at the same time, even though Mallory's body

was found thousands of feet away from Irvine's boot? Or did they somehow get

separated?

Did the two men reach the summit or perish before getting to the top?

Did they take the northeast ridge route or did they try to find an alternate way

up the mountain?

We just don't know.

The search for Irvine's camera continues.

Climbers from around the world keep watch for it when they're on Everest's

north side, hoping to find the one piece of evidence that could solve these

mysteries once and for all.

Until then, the names Mallory and Irvine.

live on as part of Mount Everest legend.

Around 50 miles south of Oslo, Norway, between the Oslo fjord and Sweden, sits

the forest region of Ytre Osfold.

The Osfold region is dominated by hard rock that was smoothed by massive

glaciers during the last ice age.

Due to the melting ice, the sea levels in the area are now 50 to 65 feet higher

than they were 3,000 years ago.

This had a dramatic impact on the topography of Ostfold County,

transforming the area into a complex maritime landscape characterized by a

sprawling archipelago of islands, peninsulas, and fjords that extend deep

into the coastal interior.

The historic waterways are the perfect place to take in the area's beautiful

scenery. But come winter, the county is blanketed by ice and snow, and the

region's beauty is covered by darkness, with only a few hours of sunlight each

day.

In November of 2024, rock-carving hunters in Ytre Osfold set out under the

cover of night, shining lamps on a cliff face.

when they noticed a subtle, shallow indentation on a large rock.

They peeled back a thin layer of moss and found a series of lines running

vertically perpendicular to one large horizontal line measuring about 10 feet

long. A shape starts to take form when the larger line curves up on either end.

It looks like a ship with 38 vertical lines that appear to be within the hull.

And based on its weathered appearance, It seems to be ancient.

This is an extraordinary discovery.

It's the fourth largest ship carving ever found in Norway, and also the most

significant petroglyph uncovered in the last 125 years.

The question is, who etched it, and what does it represent?

Two different types of dating methods are used to determine the age of the

carving.

First... The design and specific features of the ship are compared to the

vast collection of rock art that's been discovered across Scandinavia.

The style of the ship, with its high curved stems and the presence of

vertical lines in the vessel's hull, are characteristic of the Southern tradition

of Scandinavian rock art, which dates back to the Bronze Age.

Shoreline displacement dating is also used to confirm the age of the carving.

This is a geographic dating method specific to Scandinavia, where shoreline

displacement curves are created to determine the sea level at any given

point in the past.

The altitude of the rock art above the current sea level can be used to

calculate the earliest possible time that it could have been carved.

This method confirms the petroglyph is from the Bronze Age between roughly 1800

and 500 BCE.

Within a 15-mile stretch covering 126 acres lies the highest density of rock

carvings in Northern Europe. The region was on the coastline when the carvings

were made, but now they sit at an elevation of over 80 feet.

This suggests they were created during the Bronze Age, just like the Ytra

Asfold ship carving.

Carvings from this era were made using a technique called pecking, where the

surface of the stone is repeatedly struck with a hammer stone until a

shallow design just fractions of an inch deep appears.

It's also possible that a small tool made from a tin alloy was used to create

the finer, more precise lines.

Much of the art in Tarnum depicts people performing rituals.

Carvings of warriors are often accompanied by supernatural beings,

large ships, and ritual gear with bird-like attributes, bi-horned helmets,

and mosques. But what's curious is the majority of the panels weren't placed

vertically, which would have made them much easier to see from afar.

Instead, because of the slope of the rocks, they're almost invisible unless

you're standing directly beside or on top of them. This could mean they were

only meant to be seen by certain people who knew where they were located.

The relationship between secret societies and rock art has been well

established, and Tarnum could very well have been one of these locations.

It's possible that the carvings were assigned for a private meeting place

where secret rituals occurred.

Could the Utrecht-Oestfold ship carving have served a similar purpose?

Almost 300 miles south, in Jatterstad, Sweden, hundreds of footprints were

discovered carved into rocks.

The life-sized pairs of footprints are about 2,500 years old and the only known

full-sized depictions of the human body in Scandinavian petroglyphs.

Some of the feet are bare, while others resemble prints made by moccasins or

sandals.

One interpretation suggests that the carved footprints in Jarstad symbolized

a claim to the land, an act of standing on it to signify ownership.

The Bronze Age saw an emergence of a maritime culture made up of fishermen,

farmers, warriors and traders with long-distance trade networks that linked

Scandinavia to continental Europe and beyond.

The main goal of this trade was the acquisition of metals, specifically

copper and tin, which were needed to make bronze and were not available

locally.

Control of sea routes was vital for trade, and therefore vital for survival.

The Ytre-Eustfold carving may have been more than just art. It could have been a

bold display of strength, intended to intimidate rivals and assert dominance

over the surrounding waters.

The ship was the ultimate symbol of power and mobility, and would have been

an obvious choice for an emblem to claim territory.

The carving also happens to be located near a fjord.

so it's possible that it was intended to signify control of a trade route.

Almost 300 miles south, the Hjurtspring boat was discovered in the Hjurtspring

-Mosebog in southern Denmark in 1921.

It's a remarkable artifact, a large, well-preserved canoe that measured about

62 feet long and almost 7 feet wide, weighing about 1200 pounds.

The size suggests about 20 people would fit on board.

The massive canoe is believed to date back to between 400 and 300 BCE, making

it the oldest wooden vessel ever discovered in Scandinavia.

But it wasn't discovered on its own. It contained a huge quantity of weapons and

armor. 131 shields, 138 iron spearheads, 31 bone spearheads, and 11

single-edged iron swords were all discovered in its hull.

Bowls, boxes, and blacksmith's tools were also found.

Other curious items were discovered below the ship at the bottom of the bog.

The remains of a dismembered horse, a lamb, a calf, and two dogs.

This indicates the vessel was likely deliberately sunk as a votive offering,

a gift that is buried in a sacred or religious place to express gratitude or

request of favor from supernatural forces.

So is it possible that the Yeter Oswald ship carving is a marker for something

buried nearby?

It's possible, but so far, no other artifacts have been discovered near the

carving. That doesn't mean that they're not there. They might be, but so far, we

haven't found them.

Less than 200 miles west in Solbach, a prehistoric carving site was discovered

in 1923.

Dating? to around 500 BCE, the carvings include 30 ships and eight circles,

which can be interpreted as suns.

And just like the Yitra Ostfold ship carving, these vessels also have what

are called crew lines.

In this case, the carved ship isn't merely a depiction of a vessel, but a

mythical cosmological symbol central to the Bronze Age belief system. The

primary function of the sacred ship was to transport the sun on its cyclical

journey.

The belief was that the sun was carried across the sky by a divine helper and

then transferred to a ship at sunset to be navigated through the underworld

during the night, ready to be reborn in the morning.

So maybe the Yidr Oswald carving is also representative of these beliefs.

That's the most likely explanation.

The ship was probably a spiritual symbol and more of a cosmological vessel than a

representation of an actual ship. But it's impossible to say with any

certainty.

While the true meaning of the Itzra Ostfold ship carving remains a mystery,

evidence suggests it held a spiritual significance whether linked to the

heavens above or the depths below.

Almost 2,000 miles north of Moscow, in the Barents Sea region of the Arctic

Ocean, sits Vilcek Island, Russia.

The island is part of this extremely remote archipelago called Franz Josef

Land. It's the northernmost landmass in all of Eurasia.

It's this complex network of islands, all separated by these deep fjords, some

of which are more than 800 feet deep.

The area is one of the most remote parts of the world, and reaching it is no

simple task.

It holds the highest level of federal environmental protection and was

designated a Russian national park in 2012.

Anyone who wants to visit, including researchers, has to get approval from

the Russian government.

Even then, the only way to get there is aboard one of their ice-breaking

vessels.

There's also an added layer of military secrecy in the region.

After the Cold War, it became part of a Russian military zone and it remains in

use as a base today.

The only people who inhabit the land are military personnel and a few

researchers, so there's no permanent civilian population.

The Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute are studying Vilcek

Island's permafrost when they make a startling discovery.

The ice cap that once covered the entire island had split into two parts.

And the newly exposed gap revealed several square miles of the island's

surface for the first time in thousands of years. And guess what?

Scattered across that newly exposed ground were all these great big...

bones that were really well preserved.

Some of the skeletons were almost completely intact, allowing researchers

to identify the species pretty easily.

While the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute hasn't released the

exact findings, it's pretty safe to assume the remains belong to whale

species that adapted to the Arctic's extreme environment.

The most likely candidate is either the baleen whale that was native to the icy

Arctic waters or the gray whale, which was also known to inhabit the region in

the past.

One thing is for certain, there were a lot of remains present and the site

looked like a mass whale graveyard.

But how did all these whales end up here, dead in the same place?

Almost 2,000 miles west, just off Alaska's north coast on Barter and Cross

Island, are a large number of scattered whale carcasses, attracting apex

predators.

Each year, local indigenous hunters come to the area for the annual whale hunt.

Over time, the discarded remains have built up on the islands.

In the fall, the whale carcasses attract bears from miles away, lured by the

smell of rotting whale flesh.

It's so enticing that the site has become one of the few places where two

bear species, polar and grizzly, have been observed feeding side by side.

It's possible that the whale graveyard on Vilcek Island wasn't from a mass

casualty event that happened all at once, but that it's the accumulation

of feasting over millennia.

And that's why we see this huge graveyard today.

But for this theory to hold water, it would mean that polar bears were capable

of hauling multi-ton whales across the island tundra.

Why would they do that instead of feasting by the shore?

almost 1,500 miles southwest in Moore County, Norway.

There's evidence of a tsunami that could help explain how the whale remains ended

up on Vilcek Island.

About 60 miles off the northeast coast of Norway, there's this site with

evidence of a massive ancient underwater landslide that would have caused

tsunamis as far away as the UK and beyond that. It was huge.

it's estimated that 840 cubic miles of coast shelf materials just collapsed

into the North Atlantic Ocean all at once.

Carbon dating of the plant material deposited by the tsunamis places the

event between 6200 and 6100 BCE.

Sediment from the waves has been found as far away as Scotland, with traces

discovered in Montrose Basin and the Firth of Forth, almost 50 miles inland.

Could something similar have happened on the continental shelf of the Barents or

Arctic Sea?

It's possible that a massive underwater landslide triggered a wave powerful

enough to surge across the coast of Belgic Island.

If the wave was big enough, it could have swept an entire pod of whales

inland, landing them in a valley or basin.

Over time, Their remains could have been buried under the ice and preserved for

thousands of years.

A tsunami is one of the few natural forces powerful enough to move something

as large as a pod of whales.

But so far, no specific dated submarine landslide in the Arctic that could have

caused a tsunami has been identified.

Over 9,000 miles south in Golden Bay, New Zealand, a natural phenomenon occurs

that is deadly for whales.

Farewell spit on the north end of the South Island is on the migration route

for long-finned pilot whales.

The water here gently slopes away from the shore instead of a deep plunge into

the depths of the ocean.

So whales might not notice how shallow the water is until it's too late.

Quite often a sick whale or mother preparing to give birth or traveling

with her calf will enter the split to rest in the shallow water But the

instinct for refuge can trigger a mass stranding because of their strong social

bonds the entire pod might follow them Sometimes the whales can become

disoriented especially the ones that rely on sonar to navigate the gentle

sloping shoreline can distort their signals and can even create the false

impression of deeper water leading them further into danger.

Pods of whales often pass through Golden Bay along their migration routes,

stopping to feed in its shallow waters.

It's not unusual for hundreds of whales to become stranded in a day.

The slopes of the seabed near Veljik Island are similarly sloped and could

have also created a trap for the whales.

And we know baleen whales don't have sonar like toothed whales do, but baleen

whales can get stranded sometimes too. Everyone makes mistakes.

So it's possible that the whales maybe ended up in a basin during high tide and

then got trapped there when the tide went out.

The researchers suspect that the most likely scenario was a mass mortality

event. that occurred between 2,000 and 4,400 years ago.

The Barents Sea region of the Russian Arctic is still experiencing isostatic

rebound, which is the gradual rise of land masses after the removal of the

immense weight of glacial ice sheets.

And studies show that Franz Josef Land continues to rise even today.

Research on the surrounding shorelines reveals that the ancient coastlines once

stood as much as 160 feet above their current level.

It's likely the waters in Belgic Bay were once part of an inlet or fjord that

was easily accessible from the ocean.

But at some point, the entrance became too shallow, even possibly sealed off by

a sandbar, and trapped the whales inside.

that would have created a lagoon cut off from the rest of the ocean. And with

that smaller body of water, it would have frozen over more quickly, which

could have trapped the whales below the ice.

The fate of the whales on Vilcek Island may remain a mystery, but the evidence

strongly suggests that a sudden shift in sea levels was behind the devastating

mass casualty.

Located in southwest China, Yunnan Province spans approximately 152,000

square miles.

It's a dramatic landscape with high-altitude plains and rugged mountain

ranges. This region has one of the most extreme transitions in elevation

anywhere on Earth. I mean, within just a few hundred miles, the terrain climbs

from subtropical valleys at like 6,000 feet to snow-capped peaks reaching over

20,000 feet.

Sharp ascent marks the edge of the Tibetan Plateau to the north, and that

is one of the least densely populated places in the world.

Yunnan Province is the most ethnically diverse region in China, home to almost

47 million people and over 25 distinct ethnic groups.

The majority live in towns and villages scattered across mountain valleys and

wide plains.

Winters here can be brutal.

At high altitudes, temperatures regularly drop well below zero

Fahrenheit, and even summer nights can fall to freezing.

With thin air and low oxygen levels, survival is difficult, but humans have

lived here for millennia.

In Tungai County, a team of archaeologists is excavating the Sinyi

Site, a massive ancient refuse pile known as a midden.

where ancient inhabitants left behind layers of shells, tools, and burials.

As the team dug through the upper layers, they uncovered artifacts and

burials from the Dian culture of the Bronze Age.

And below that, they found distinct remains from the earlier Neolithic

Xingyi culture, dating back roughly 4,000 to 6,000 years.

Deeper down, they hit an ash layer and then discovered a solitary skeleton

lying there, with knees pulled up to the chin.

What was immediately noticeable was how stark this burial was.

Xingyi graves typically included goods and careful placement of the deceased.

But here, there are no possession, no offerings, nothing.

Just this one person, alone, without any signs of ritual or community ties.

So who is this person, and why is her grave so different from everyone else

buried here?

The team sends samples to Beijing for analysis.

An initial examination reveals the skeleton belongs to a female.

Radiocarbon dating placed her in the early Neolithic period, roughly 7,100

years ago.

When her bones were analyzed, they found she was a hunter-gatherer, surviving on

a completely different diet from the farming communities that came thousands

of years later and were buried above her.

The skeletal remains were well-preserved enough to extract DNA, but when it was

sequenced, something didn't add up. Her genome didn't fit the known patterns

from ancient people in this region. So what could explain this strange DNA?

In 1994, a research team in Utah published findings that stunned the

scientific community.

They claimed to have successfully extracted dinosaur DNA from 80 million

year old bone fragments.

However, multiple scientific teams disputed this.

It turned out that the samples were contaminated with modern human DNA.

Ancient DNA testing is incredibly sensitive and contamination of just a

single molecule of modern DNA can completely throw off the results.

Ever since that 1994 incident, researchers have become extremely

cautious with ancient DNA testing, and the Xinyi skeleton's DNA was rigorously

verified. It was tested repeatedly in specialized labs using multiple methods,

and the results were consistent every time.

The DNA was authentic, and this isn't the first time unusual ancient DNA has

been found in Asia.

In 2008, in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, Russian archaeologists working

in Denisova Cave made an extraordinary discovery.

They found a tiny finger bone, just a fragment of a pinky from a young girl.

When scientists analyzed the DNA, they discovered that she belonged to an

entirely unknown type of ancient human being. She wasn't a modern human being

or a Neanderthal, but belonged to a group closely related to Neanderthals.

They called them the Denisovans, essentially an unknown branch of human

evolution.

For years, Denisovans were what scientists called a ghost population.

That means we only knew they existed from traces of DNA in living people, but

their bones had never been found.

The finger fragment was the first physical proof they were real.

Denisovans lived about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago and ranged across Asia from

the frigid mountains of Siberia, all the way to tropical Southeast Asia. And they

survived in a bunch of the planet's most extreme environments.

Their DNA still lives on today as part of Australasia and across a bunch of

Asia, including the Tibetan Plateau. So could the Xingyi woman be Denisovan?

Her DNA was checked against known Denisovan sequences, and it didn't

match. And there are no traces of Neanderthal ancestry either.

She's a modern human being, but her lineage diverged from other East Asian

populations tens of thousands of years ago and remained isolated.

But there is a precedent for this kind of deeply diverged lineage.

In 2003 near Beijing, archaeologists discovered bone fragments in a cave

called Tianyuan.

The skeleton was in rough shape. There were only 34 bone fragments total.

People were able to figure out that they came from a male who lived about 40,000

years ago.

There were animal fossils alongside those bones, but he was alone in the

cave with no evidence of any other humans.

Ten years later, in 2013, researchers analyzed the ancient DNA and the results

were startling.

This individual belonged to a diverged East Asian lineage, genetically distinct

from other population groups in the region.

The Tianyuan individual was related to the ancestors of many present-day Asians

and even Native Americans in South America.

But while his genes linked to many modern groups, that ancient lineage

itself eventually vanished and was replaced by newer populations.

So could the Xingyi woman belong to the same ancient lineage?

At first glance, it seemed possible, but then DNA testing revealed something

totally different.

The Qianyuan lineage was from northern China and was eventually replaced by

other populations.

The Xingyi woman was from the south, and her genetic signature is completely

different. She represents a totally separate lineage entirely.

Determined to identify this unusual DNA, researchers conduct extensive genetic

comparisons across populations throughout Asia.

The Xingyi woman represents a population that split off from other Asian groups

at least 40,000 years ago.

Geneticists call this the Basal Asian Xingyi lineage.

It's a ghost population that lived in isolation in southern China for tens of

thousands of years.

with little or no mixing with other groups.

Until now, scientists had only theorized about its existence from DNA traces in

living people.

For years, scientists have known that modern Tibetans carry a mysterious

genetic component that couldn't be explained.

When the Xinyi woman's DNA was compared to modern Tibetan genomes, they found a

direct connection, a match.

Her lineage is related to that missing component of Tibetan ancestry.

And most Tibetans today carry up to 20% of this ancient DNA.

This ghost population survived for tens of thousands of years in the isolated

terrain of Yunnan before eventually it disappeared.

But its legacy lives on in the DNA of people living on the Tibetan plateau

today.

The Xinyi Woman rewrites our understanding of human presence and

evolution in East Asia.

How our population survived in isolation for millennia is still unknown.

But discoveries like this reveal that the human past is still full of

mysteries waiting to be found.