Denisovans

Denisovans are an extinct group of archaic humans identified from genetic material recovered from fossils found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia. The name comes from the cave where the remains were first discovered.

The fossil record for Denisovans is sparse. In 2008 a fragmentary finger bone was recovered from Denisova Cave. In 2010, genetic analyses of the bone revealed a distinct hominin lineage that was more closely related to Neanderthals than to modern humans. Subsequent analyses of additional remains from the cave, including teeth and other bones, confirmed a separate Denisovan population and expanded knowledge of their geographic range, though direct fossils remain few.

Genetic studies show that Denisovans split from the lineage leading to modern humans and Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago. They interbred with ancestors of some modern human populations, leaving a measurable legacy in present-day genomes. Denisovan ancestry is most prominent in the Oceanian and some Southeast Asian populations, including Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians, with smaller signals detected in parts of East and South Asia. Notably, some adaptive alleles inherited from Denisovans appear to have contributed to traits such as high-altitude adaptation in Tibetans (via the EPAS1 gene) and immune system function.

Geographically, Denisovans are known primarily from the Denisova Cave site, but genetic evidence implies a wider distribution across Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene. The discovery of Denisovans has highlighted the complexity of human evolution, illustrating that multiple hominin lineages coexisted and interacted in Eurasia.