1. Multidisciplinary research at 9 Paleolithic cave sites and 11 open-air sites in the Altai have yielded sufficient amount of data that makes it possible to reconstruct the material and spiritual culture of humans over the chronological interval of 300–30 ka BP.
2. The Upper Paleolithic was formed in the Altai earlier than 50 ka BP. This supposition is supported by the noted high level of development of the primary reduction techniques as well as mass production of blade tools, usage of bone in manufacturing needles, borers and other tools, pieces of art and personal decorations.
3. The genomic sequences of mt-DNA and nuclear DNA have shown that this well-developed culture belonged to the new subspecies of the anatomically modern man that was named as Homo sapiens altaiensis, or the Denisovan man.
4. Currently, there are the two major hypotheses about the origins of Homo sapiens: the Recent African Origin hypothesis and the Multiregional hypothesis. The Recent out of Africa hypothesis advocates the idea that the anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa 200 – 150 ka BP and dispersed over Eurasia some 80 – 60 ka BP though replacement of the archaic autochthonous populations by the new species. The proponents of the Multiregional hypothesis of human evolution argued that divergence processes, gene flow, impacts of various ecological conditions and other factors might have produced their influence on the evolution of Homo erectus and led to the origin of the anatomically modern man.
5. Genomic analysis of the DNA sequenced from present humans has shown that the genome of non-Africans contains up to 1 – 4 % of the Neanderthal genome, while the Southeastern Asian populations contain up to 7% of the Denisovan genome. Hence, these two archaic human taxa were involved in the process of evolution of the anatomically modern humans.
6. Based on the recent genetic, physical anthropological and archaeological data, a new hypothesis on the origin of the anatomically modern humans has been put forward. Anatomically modern man (Homo sapiens) evolved through contributions of four subspecies: H. s. africanensis, H. s. neanderthalensis, H. s. orientalensis and H. s. altaiensis.