Denisovan Fossils Are Resurfacing and Teaching Us More About Our Mysterious Human Cousins

Scientists have only had minimal DNA samples and bone fragments belonging to Denisovans to study, but recently, two new fossils have come out of hiding that reveal more about our elusive cousins

Penghu 1 Denisovan Mandible Fossil — Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

We modern humans are the only human species that exists today, but once upon a time, we shared the planet with at least five others — Homo heidelbergensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis (the Neanderthals), and Homo longi (Denisovans), the two latter of which, we actively coexisted with.

We know quite a lot about Neanderthals, as like us, they often buried their deceased. This practice helped protect their remains and allowed modern archaeologists to discover and study them. However, the Denisovans didn’t appear to do the same, and archaeologists have only found a few bone fragments, making this species much more mysterious. But two recent jawbones have resurfaced that shed more light on our elusive cousins.

Denisovans

In 2010, archaeologists unearthed several bones in Siberia’s Denisova Cave, near the Russian-Kazakhstan border, and sent them to Svante Pääbo, a…