Denisovans were a lineage of humans who lived in Asia and went extinct around 30,000 years ago. Ancient DNA has shown that Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens) are distantly related and that all three groups interbred in the past. But while archaeologists have found numerous Neanderthal and modern-human skeletons, Denisovans are known from only a handful of fragmentary fossils scattered from Siberia to Laos. This lack of evidence has severely limited experts' understanding of Denisovans' bodies and their culture.
Bianfu Cave is in the Yunnan province of southwestern China. In 2019, archaeologists excavated several stratigraphic layers of the cave and discovered nearly 1,400 stone artifacts, more than 64,000 mammal bones, and four teeth from an unknown human lineage. The Yunnan area is where Denisovans and modern humans are known to have met and mated, so researchers were unsure which group had used tools to butcher animals inside Bianfu Cave.
The geographical location of the Bianfu Cave, where researchers have discovered several teeth and bones from Denisovans. (Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of China)When the researchers applied the ZooMS technique to the Bianfu Cave bones, they discovered that three of the fragments had a collagen pattern found in members of the Homo genus. Then, using proteomic analysis, the researchers found that two teeth and three bones from Bianfu Cave had a particular amino acid variation linking the fossil remains with Denisovans.
The newly discovered radius has a large head (where it connects to the humerus at the elbow) that is more similar to those seen in Neanderthals than in modern humans, but its overall shape is more similar to modern-human radii, the researchers wrote in one of the new studies. The fact that the Denisovan radius was shaped more similarly to the radius in humans "likely provided functional advantages for lightweight, precise manipulation," study co-author Qiaomei Fu, director of the Ancient DNA Laboratory at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, told Live Science in an email.
Denisovan stone and bone tools
In a related study, researchers looked at the entire cultural sequence from Bianfu Cave to work out what Denisovans were doing there.
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Although the studies have contributed new information to archaeologists' understanding of the enigmatic Denisovans, more work needs to be done, according to the researchers.
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