The excavations continue, each season yielding new material from the deep stratigraphic sequence that has accumulated over hundreds of thousands of years of periodic occupation.

When you stand at the entrance to Denisova Cave and look out over the Anui valley, you are looking at a landscape that has changed significantly since Denny’s time — the climate is different, the vegetation is different, the megafauna that roamed these valleys 90,000 years ago is gone — but the essential geography is recognizable.

The mountains rise on either side of the valley.

The river runs below.