fascinating Denisovans
So, to take a rest from current political and macho horrors, I’d like to focus on Denisovans, because it seems we’ve gone well beyond a finger-bone’s worth of evidence, and I’ve not been paying attention….
A recent New Scientist video has rather shocked me, as well as inspiring me with the evidence lately uncovered. So it starts with the claim, or fact, that only 50,000 years ago, there were four other species of humans living on Earth – Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis, the Denisovans (no formal name agreed upon, apparently) and one other….? All will be revealed? Is it Homo longi? Homo naledi perhaps?
So there’s now evidence from a heap of artefacts – over one thousand – that the Denisovans lived in south-west China for more than 100,000 years. These artefacts were discovered in Bianfu Cave, Yunnan province, by far the largest trove of Denisovan material found so far.
So the situation 100,000 years ago, according to the video, was that H sapiens were mostly still in Africa, though some had ventured beyond the Mediterranean and into the Middle East. Neanderthals were well established in Europe and western Asia. The huge territory of eastern Asia seems then to have been dominated by Denisovans. And yet… the only DNA evidence is from that finger bone…?
A skull was found way back in 1933 in Harbin, China, and:
Confirmed via ancient protein and mitochondrial DNA analysis in 2025, this 146,000-to-309,000-year-old fossil provides the first clear look at the face of our ancient human cousins. [AI overview]
This Harbin cranium, which is suggestive of a very sizeable form of human, was given the name ‘Dragon Man’, which is apparently where the term Homo longi comes from, and was for quite some time difficult to place among human types. To quote Wikipedia:
The Harbin cranium was initially hypothesized to belong to the same species as the Denisovans, and subsequent proteomics and mitochondrial DNA analyses confirmed its Denisovan affinities.
The Harbin cranium is broadly anatomically similar to other Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens. Like other archaic humans, the skull is low and long, with massively developed brow ridges, wide eye sockets, and a large mouth. The skull is the longest ever found from any human species.
There have been other more or less confirmed Denisovan discoveries from throughout the East Asian region, but the Bianfu Cave find, with over a thousand artefacts, has obviously been most impactful. The science writer Michael Marshall, who has visited the Bianfu site, points out that Denisova cave, where that first tiny specimen was found, would probably mark the very northern border of this species’ range, so ‘Denisovan’ might be a misnomer.
Some 64,000 fragments of bone have been discovered at the Bianfu site, as well as about 1000 artefacts, and all of this largely by chance as the area was being quarried for entirely different purposes, so I imagine some material was lost in that process – which makes you wonder how many ancient sites have been destroyed through mining and other activities. Anyway, Denisovan bones and teeth from the Denisovans from around 150,000 years ago have been identified, and stone artefacts from as early as 190,000 years ago. It seems from pollen and other samples that the area around the site was fertile, suggesting a temperate climate, and the bones of deer, early forms of cows, sheep and goats, even hyenas and rhinos, mostly mature adults, have been found, suggesting that they were hunted rather than scavenged by these human ancestors, not with massive weapons, it seems, unless those were of perishable material, such as bamboo.
So, the connections between the Neanderthals, the Denisovans and H sapiens are yet to be thoroughly worked out, but it seems, from the little DNA, and also proteins that have been recovered, that those other species are more closely related to each other than to us. But the inter-breeding that we now have so much evidence of when we genetically test populations around the globe raises questions about the ‘species’ concept – a concept that seems more a handy rule of thumb than anything hard and fast. And it does seem, as Michael Marshall suggests, that H sapiens managed to move ahead, in terms of innovation and technology, through sheer force of numbers.
Marshall also pointed out that, from the finds so far, the Denisovans were the largest of the three species. But then, we need more evidence from more sites… And let’s hope we find such evidence, as what we’ve found so far is very, very intriguing…
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