Who were the Denisovans?

We know comparatively little about the Denisovans, both because their discovery has been more recent and because the remains that have been discovered are less complete. Archeologists have unearthed a small number of finger bones and teeth, part of a mandible, and a few other bone fragments, but from this small collection of remains we have been able to learn some important information.

They are likely to have lived across Asia, the Philippines, and New Guinea, and they have been named after the cave where the first bone fragments were found, Denisova Cave in the Siberian Altai Mountains.

Their range overlapped with both Neanderthals and modern humans, and we can see evidence of their meetings not only in our genome today, but in the remains of an individual who was a first generation Neanderthal Denisovan hybrid - meaning that one parent came from each species.

We hope that in the future more remains will be found that will allow us to learn more about this archaic human species.