The Tibetan Plateau is the highest and one of the most demanding environments ever inhabited by humans.The researchers from IVPP investigated the timing and mechanisms of its initial colonization at the Nwya Devu site, located nearly 4600 meters above sea level.This site, dating from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, is the highest Paleolithic archaeological site yet identified globally. And the stone artifacts unearthed at this site indicated hitherto-unknown capacities for the survival of modern humans.

Genetic reconstructions based on present-day panda populations likely do not accurately depict their evolutionary history, but no mitochondrial (mtDNA) and nuclear genomes have been retrieved from ancient giant pandas to give a different story. This has changed with a new study in Current Biology (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.008) led by Professor FU and her team in the Molecular Paleontology Lab at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. In this study, they sequence the complete mtDNA of a ~22,000-year-old giant panda specimen. This giant panda was found by Professor ZHANG Yingqi at IVPP and the caving team (Beijing Caver ) in August 2014 at the Cizhutuo Cave located in the Leye County of Guangxi Province in China (Figure 1-2). That it lived around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) makes it the oldest panda genetically sequenced to date.

A well preserved, nearly complete skeleton of a new extinct species of pheasant that lived between 7 and 11 million years ago adjacent to the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in China preserves the oldest evidence of a bird having modified and specialized its vocalization sounds (songs or calls).