Mystery Jawbone Pulled From the Sea Is a Rare Fossil From an Elusive Human Relative

The Denisovans were a mysterious group of archaic humans who likely lived from around 370,000 years ago to at least 30,000 years ago, and are believed to be an offshoot or sister group of the Neanderthals. What little we know about Denisovans is based on a handful of fragmented fossil remains unearthed in Siberia’s Denisova Cave and China’s Tibetan Plateau. A new analysis, however, adds another piece to the Denisovan puzzle. In a study published today in the journal Science, a team of researchers from Japan, Taiwan, and Denmark revealed that a jawbone previously discovered in Taiwan belonged to a male Denisovan. They reached this conclusion after conducting a paleoproteomic analysis—an analysis of ancient proteins—which revealed two protein variants associated with Denisovans. The identification provides the most compelling evidence yet that Denisovans lived across different habitats and adapted to diverse climates. “The high-quality palaeoproteomic data obtained from Penghu 1 [the f ... Read full article.