Meeting the Denisovans

On August 31, 2012, Science magazine reported that the complete genome for the Denisovans had been mapped. The Denisovans shared our planet with neanderthals and early modern humans, but we now know that they are significantly different from either of those two hominids, even though the species is known only from two teeth and a fingerbone from Denisova cave in Siberia.

The Denisovans--or at least two teeth and a fragmented finger bone--were identified by the Neanderthal Genome Project at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who in 2008 were rummaging through old collections of Middle and Upper Paleothic sites to compare their newly mapped Neanderthal gene sequence. What they discovered startled the world: a completely hitherto unknown human species.

Denisova cave and the human remains were discovered by Russian archaeologists in 2000, and according to their investigations, the Denisovan culture was not much different from that of other Initial Upper Paleolithic cultures of the day. We don't as yet know their geographic spread, but the DNA analysis indicates that they at least colonized parts of southeast Asia. A bit of Denisovan DNA is shared by modern human populations in these regions, particularly those alleles associated with dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes.

• Read more about the Denisovans
• Read more about Denisova Cave

Meyer M, Kircher M, Gansauge M-T, Li H, Racimo F, Mallick S, Schraiber JG, Jay F, Prüfer K, de Filippo C et al. 2012. A High-Coverage Genome Sequence from an Archaic Denisovan Individual. Science Express.