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Baishiya Karst Cave

Baishiya Karst Cave is a high-altitude paleoanthropological site and a Tibetan Buddhist sanctuary located on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in Xiahe County, Gansu, China. This karst cave is the site of the discovery of the earliest hominin fossil found on the Tibetan Plateau, the Xiahe mandible. The mandible, by way of palaeoproteomic analysis, is the first confirmed discovery of a Denisovan fossil outside of Denisova Cave. This fossil discovery shows that archaic hominins were present in a high-altitude, low-oxygen environment by around 160,000 years ago.

Cave data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).

More caves in People's Republic of China

  1. Ah-ai Grotto
  2. Alu Cave
  3. Baimo Cave
  4. Benxi Shuidong National Park
  5. Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves

Other notable caves worldwide

  1. Mammoth Cave · Australia686 km
  2. Sistema Sac Actun · Mexico119.2 m
  3. Lechuguilla Cave · United States489 m
  4. Optymistychna Cave · Ukraine20 m
  5. Veryovkina Cave · Georgia2,212 m
  6. Krubera Cave · Georgia2,199 m
  7. Sarma cave · Georgia1,830 m
  8. Clearwater Cave · Malaysia109 km