In 2025, researchers used protein analysis to show that a jawbone recovered from ocean sediments off the coast of Taiwan belonged to a Denisovan. Credit: Yousuke Kaifu An abandoned quarry in southwestern China has given scientists a portal to the Stone Age. The site’s trove of fossils and artifacts offers an unprecedented glimpse into the lives and abilities of the mysterious ancient humans called Denisovans. Evidence from the site indicates that the Denisovans made bone tools similar to those of their relatives, the Neanderthals. The items also suggest that the Denisovans, who lived at the site for at least 30,000 years, and possibly up to 120,000 years, were skilled hunters of animals such as deer. No other site provides such a long and clear record of the behavior and technology that are closely related to the Denisovans. “This site is the complete package,” says Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the study. “It’s the first site we have with a long, rich sequence that is exclusively associated with the Denisovans,” he says. Details of the findings were published today in Nature1,2. New bones, new homes Denisovans were first described in 2010, after researchers sequenced genetic material from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia and found that the DNA did not match that of any other known human species. Since then, ancient proteins, which are stronger than ancient DNA, have proven to be the most reliable in identifying Denisova remains. Mandibles found on the Tibetan Plateau and in sediments dredged from the Taiwan Strait extended across known Denisovan territory south and east of Siberia. And in 2025, scientists finally put a face to the extinct people, with confirmation that a skull found near Harbin in northeast China was that of a Denisovan. Who were the ancient Denisovans? Fossils reveal secrets about mysterious humansIn 2019, workers beginning ecological restoration of a quarry in southwest China’s Yunnan province stumbled upon bones and stone tools. Scientists eventually excavated thousands of objects from a cavern called Bianfu Cave located within the quarry. Five pieces of bone from the cave turned out to belong to Denisovans, based on an analysis of protein fragments in the samples: two curved skull wedges, a portion of a forearm bone and two teeth. Qiaomei Fu, a paleogeneticist at the Beijing Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, who led the work on the proteins, says the Denisovan fossils were discovered in two different layers of cave sediment. “This is not just an occasional fossil,” he says. Rather, the remains suggest that archaic people lived in the region for an extended period, between 167,000 and 134,000 years ago. Fu says Bianfu’s southwestern location is also important because it is closer, compared to previous sites, to regions where Denisovans and modern humans might have mixed. Among the modern humans with the highest percentages of Denisovan DNA in their genomes (the result of ancient dating) are people living in Papua New Guinea and nearby islands.
