Jawbone from Taiwan shows geographic reach of enigmatic lineage of humans

11/4/2025 6:24

Molecular analysis has determined

that a jawbone recovered off Taiwan's coast came from a

Denisovan, showing that this enigmatic lineage of archaic humans

once inhabited a vast expanse in eastern Eurasia in environments

ranging from cold and arid to warm and humid.

Scientists were unable to extract DNA from the fossil - part of

the lower jaw, with five teeth attached - but identified two

protein variants present in the remains that they knew were

specific to Denisovans, rather than either Neanderthals or our

species Homo sapiens, based on previously studied fossils.



Protein fragments in the dental enamel of the fossil related

to the Y-chromosome, showing that the individual was male.



Determining the age of the fossil has been difficult, as the

researchers were unable to use traditional dating methods. They

estimate that it is either 10,000 to 70,000 years old or 130,000

to 190,000 years old, based on animal fossils associated with

its discovery. That means there is a chance it is the

youngest-known fossil of a Denisovan individual.



The mandible, along with various animal fossils, was

retrieved from the seafloor through dredging during commercial

fishing operations in the Penghu Channel, which once was dry

land. It eventually ended up in a Taiwanese antique shop, where

it was bought in 2008 and later donated to a museum in Taiwan.

The existence of Denisovans was unknown until researchers in

2010 announced the discovery of their remains in Denisova Cave

in Siberia, with genetic evidence showing them to be a sister

group to Neanderthals, the stoutly built extinct archaic humans

who inhabited parts of Eurasia. Both experienced significant

interactions with Homo sapiens, including interbreeding, before

vanishing soon after for reasons not fully understood.



From genetics, scientists have determined that Denisovans

diverged from Neanderthals around 400,000 years ago. When

Denisovans disappeared remains unclear.



Denisovans are known only from scrappy remains of bones and

teeth, with nothing close to a complete skeleton discovered to

date. That means that any newly identified fossils are important

in adding to the knowledge of what they looked like as well as

where they lived.

"We can only estimate their jawbone and teeth shapes from the

results of this study, but at least the mandible of Denisovan

male individuals was very robust and their cheek teeth were

large compared with Neanderthals and Homo sapiens," said

biological anthropologist Takumi Tsutaya of the Graduate

University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, in Japan, lead author

of the study published on Thursday in the journal Science.

Confirmed Denisovan fossils now have been identified from three

places - the Penghu Channel remains, teeth and a small finger

bone fragment from Denisova Cave in Russia and a mandible and

rib fragment from Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau in

China's Gansu province. A molar from Cobra Cave in Laos is also

believed to be from a Denisovan based on its shape.



This shows not only that Denisovans inhabited wide swathes

of Eurasia - the distance from Denisova Cave to the Penghu

Channel is about 2,800 miles (4,500 km) - but that they did so

in very different environments. These ranged from the chilly

Siberian mountains to the high elevations of the Tibetan Plateau

to the warmth of Laos and the subtropical shoreline of Taiwan.



"Denisovans must therefore have been capable of adapting to

a wide range of habitat types," said molecular anthropologist

and study co-author Frido Welker of the University of

Copenhagen.



The youngest-known Denisovan fossil determined by scientific

dating methods is the rib fragment from Baishiya Karst Cave, at

around 40,000 years old. That coincides roughly with the date of

the youngest-known Neanderthal remains. Our species trekked out

of Africa and entered into regions inhabited by Neanderthals and

Denisovans, with both those groups becoming extinct not long

afterward.



"We have so little archaeological and fossil information

about Denisovans that we can only speculate as to why they

disappeared," Welker said. "A lasting legacy, though, is that

some human populations in East and Southeast Asia carry some

Denisovan ancestry in their genomes today."