So I finally managed to get ChatGPT to speculate a bit. Could legends about mysterious "ancestors" or "Others" (or, you know, hairy giants and stuff) be actual memories of encounters between Homo sapiens and entirely different humans species? Heeeere we go!
Good — this is necessarily speculative, but it can be done responsibly, by keeping three things separate:
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What we know from genetics and archaeology
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What we know from comparative mythology and anthropology
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What we can cautiously hypothesize at the overlap
I’ll be explicit at every step about where evidence ends and inference begins.
1. What we know with high confidence (the non-speculative base)
A. Denisovans were not marginal
From genetics alone:
• Denisovans interbred multiple times with Homo sapiens
• Over a wide geographic range
• They contributed adaptive genes, not just neutral DNA
• In some populations (Australo-Papuan, Negrito), Denisovan ancestry is substantial (3–5%)
This implies:
Denisovans were ecologically, cognitively, and socially significant, not isolated brutes.
They were likely:
• Skilled foragers
• Long-term landscape dwellers
• Possessors of complex cultural knowledge
B. Denisovan admixture correlates with very early migrations
High Denisovan ancestry appears in:
• Sahul (Australia–New Guinea)
• Wallacea
• Philippine Negrito populations
These regions preserve:
• Extremely old settlement layers
• Some of the earliest continuous human cultures on Earth
This matters for myth.
2. What we know about myth transmission (still solid ground)
A. Myths are conservative
Comparative mythology shows:
• Core mythic structures can survive:
– Tens of thousands of years
– Radical cultural change
• Especially in:
– Small populations
– Oral cultures
– Stable ecologies
Australian Aboriginal songlines are the classic example.
B. Myth encodes relationships, not history
Myths rarely say:
• “We met Denisovans”
They more often encode:
• “There were Others before us”
• “They were powerful”
• “They taught us”
• “They retreated underground / into the past / into spirit realms”
This is a global pattern.
3. A recurring mythic pattern that matters here
Across Denisovan-admixed regions, we see remarkably similar motifs:
A. The “First People” or “Other People”
Common features:
• Lived before modern humans
• Closer to animals and landscape
• Possessed great power or knowledge
• Often:
– Hairy
– Dark
– Large
– Non-verbal or differently verbal
• Eventually:
– Disappeared
– Became spirits
– Went underground
Examples:
• Australian Aboriginal “Dreamtime ancestors”
• Philippine forest beings
• Melanesian ancestral spirits
• Himalayan yeti-like traditions (regionally Denisovan-adjacent)
This does not prove Denisovan memory — but it is compatible with it.
4. The most cautious hypothesis (what scholars will sometimes say privately)
A restrained hypothesis:
Early Homo sapiens may have incorporated living Denisovans into their mythic cosmologies as a category of Other-than-human persons.
Not monsters.
Not gods.
But another kind of people.
This would explain:
• Why they are often morally ambivalent
• Why they are landscape-bound
• Why they fade into spirit categories rather than enemies
5. Denisovans as proto-“spirits” rather than gods
Important point:
There is no reason to think Denisovans were worshipped as gods.
But they could have been:
• Remembered as:
– Ancestors
– First inhabitants
– Teachers
– Dangerous neighbors
Over time, memory compresses:
Living people → remembered people → ancestral beings → spirits
This process is well-documented ethnographically.
6. Totemism and deep-time human plurality
Your earlier interest in totemism matters here.
Totemism:
• Blurs human/animal boundaries
• Emphasizes descent and kinship
• Treats “kinds of beings” as relational
If early Homo sapiens lived alongside:
• Denisovans
• Possibly Homo floresiensis / luzonensis
Then:
Human plurality may be one of the conditions under which totemic thinking emerged.
Totemism may encode:
• “We are human, but not the only kind”
• “Other beings are kin, rivals, ancestors”
That is a profound religious insight.
7. Why this would survive especially in Denisovan-rich regions
High Denisovan ancestry regions share:
• Early settlement
• Long continuity
• Relative isolation
• Oral transmission
• Strong landscape mythology
These are ideal conditions for deep-time memory persistence.
Australia is the clearest case:
• Continuous culture possibly >50,000 years
• Myths explicitly tied to landforms
• Ancestral beings who are not quite human
8. Why this did not survive in most of Eurasia
In contrast, Europe and West Asia experienced:
• Massive population turnover
• Agriculture-driven replacement
• Writing
• State religions
• Theological suppression of liminality
Any Denisovan memory there would have been:
• Diluted
• Absorbed
• Or erased
9. What this does not claim (important)
This hypothesis does not claim:
• That Denisovans were gods
• That myths preserve literal historical memory
• That we can identify specific Denisovan myths
• That religion “comes from” Denisovans
Only this:
Human religious imagination may partly arise from living for millennia among other kinds of humans.
That alone is a radical thought.
10. A philosophical coda (connecting to your interests)
If this is even partly true, then:
• Religion did not begin with:
– Agriculture
– Hierarchy
– Sky gods
But with:
Encounter, difference, and shared mortality
The first religious question may not have been:
“Who made the world?”
But:
“Who are these others, and what are we to them?”
That question never really went away.
11. One-sentence takeaway
Denisovans may have left their deepest trace not in our myths as characters, but in the very idea that the world is shared with beings who are like us, older than us, and not fully knowable.
If you want, we could next:
• Compare this with Neanderthal myth residues
• Examine “little people” myths globally
• Tie this to Kālī/Bhairava and liminality
• Or ask whether religion requires plural humanity to arise at all
Just say the direction.
Good stuff! Seems like ChatGPT is getting to "know" you...
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