#denisovan

"Yeah, some researchers think the uncanny valley comes from our instinct to distinguish our group from non-sapiens groups. Because, y'know, sometimes we ATE each other."

"But wait. I thought humans interbred with Denisovans and Neanderthals! Why would we do that if they triggered uncanny terror in us?"

Ice Age Secrets

We're living in an ice age right now. Ice sheets cover the poles, and glaciers rule high mountains. Our world flips between freezing glacials and milder interglacials—and guess what? Today's warmth is just a temporary thaw.

Key Facts

Earth has endured at least five major ice ages so far.

The current one is the Quaternary period (2.6 million years ago to now), split into Pleistocene (ice-heavy, ending ~12,000 years ago) and Holocene (our interglacial era).

Temperatures can swing 15°C in decades, reshaping plants, animals, and even human evolution.

Surprise: Mammoths and saber-toothed cats roamed with early humans in the wild Pleistocene swings.

Historical Context

The Quaternary ice age kicked off 2.6 million years ago with massive ice pulses. Glaciers advanced and retreated, forcing life to adapt fast. Early humans hunted amid these chaos, dodging megafauna in a frozen, unpredictable world.

Historical Significance

These ice swings sculpted continents, drove species like mammoths to extinction, and molded human evolution. Hunter-gatherers thrived by innovating tools and migrating. Today, it warns us: our "warm" interglacial could flip cold again, echoing ancient upheavals.

'Domovoy' by @jack-of-crowns

Viktor Razumovsky drew the flaps of his Barguzin sable hat close against the glacial chill so perfectly replicated by the climate-controlled exhibition hall. The Tomskaya Pisanitsa had spared no expense when it came to either the expedition or showcase, so he had allowed himself a few luxuries when it came around snimat' slivki time. After all, without his connections, how else could the junior archaeologists in the field have been prodded into making a chance discovery this late in the season?

Every detail from the Altai Mountains site had been recreated with painstaking accuracy - stone tools arranged exactly as found, ochre stains in ceremonial grinding bowls; even the soot patterns of the cave's ceiling had been faithfully reproduced.

But it was the family that made his jaw clench.

Three figures crouched around a central hearth, an adult male, female and juvenile; AI-generated faces from the preserved skull fragments his team had unearthed. An unnerving spectral light was in the male's eyes as he worked a piece of obsidian with fluid precision, hands the size of serving platters.

"Zamechatel'no, yes?"

Anya Volkova emerged from the deep shadows of the hall. He hadn't remembered inviting her to preview the exhibit, but it came as no surprise that Promobot send their senior representative tonight.

"Remarkable indeed", he replied testily, as he was beginning to feel very ill at ease. "Your neural networks seem to have exceeded all parameters."

Her hand gently brushed the male's shoulder. "Your excavation made it possible. Twenty grams of frontal lobe material. Our biotech division's breakthrough came from extracting the actual pathway data from that preserved brain tissue."

The male Denisovan's head turned, deliberate, slow. Viktor felt a dizzying headache coming upon him.

"Vyklyuchi ikh", he snarled. "Turn them off."

The male stood up to its full height, two and a half meters tall, with a grace no machine should have possessed. The other two arose in synchronization.

"What are you feeling?" Anya spoke in a hush.

Viktor staggered backwards, heel striking the wall. The exhibition had been built in a circle. A zagon.

"Wh- where did behavioral protocols come from?"

"From them." She smiled widely. "Protein folding patterns, synaptic arrangements, all of it. We didn't just model them, doktor. We gave them a vessel."

The three figures began moving around the hearth in a pattern that he recognized with horror as ritualistic in nature. Then the male vocalized, a frequency that shook Viktor to his bones and touched something deep inside his podsoznaniye. It tilted its head, and something looked out from behind that uncanny face with the patience of stone.

"The real chance discovery was their ability to generate subaudible tones", Anya laughed. "Who could have dreamed that a hominem from the lednikoviy period would be capable of such a thing?"

Viktor could only instinctively cower against the cave wall as the figures advanced, all three of them singing the debilitatingly hypnotic melody of fear.

"It's how they hunted, you see; how they caught us and then stopped us running away from home. We were never the masters of any house in these hills."

And Viktor finally realized that it had all been a trap, set forty thousand years ago for a species which had foolishly forgotten how it had been fitted for servitude. The true domovoy had always been waiting for an invitation to return, and in his arrogance and greed he had given them just that.

Denisovan Male Portrait