Denisovan

Denisovans are an archaic human population first identified in 2010, when ancient DNA recovered from remains at Denisova Cave in southern Siberia proved to belong to a group distinct from Neanderthals. The two are sister groups, and they shared common ancestors around 400,000 years ago. Denisovans coexisted with modern humans, and studies of the fragments left in present day genomes indicate that at least two Denisovan lineages interbred with them.

For fifteen years the group was known almost entirely from pieces. Molecular evidence came from teeth, fragmentary bones and cave sediments at Denisova Cave, from a jawbone, a rib and cave sediments at Baishiya Cave on the Tibetan Plateau, and from a jawbone recovered from the Penghu Channel off Taiwan. None of those carry much information about what a Denisovan looked like, which is why the population had a genome long before it had a face.

That changed in 2025, when ancient proteins and mitochondrial DNA recovered from the nearly complete Harbin cranium in north east China placed that individual inside the Denisovan population. The find gives the group its first nearly complete skull and its first measurable anatomy.