Overview
- Two Nature papers published Wednesday report that ancient-protein (ZooMS/proteomic) analyses identified at least three Denisovan individuals from Bianfu Cave in Yunnan, including four teeth, two skull fragments and the first confirmed Denisovan radius.
- The fossils were dated to roughly 167,000–134,000 years ago while stratigraphy and artifacts show the cave was used intermittently from about 190,000 to 70,000 years ago.
- Bones carrying a Denisovan-specific collagen variant (COL1A2 R996K) give molecular certainty where ancient DNA was not preserved, and micro-CT imaging supplied anatomical detail for the skull fragments and radius.
- The human remains were found in direct association with more than 1,300 stone and bone tools and cut-marked large-animal bones, evidence the cave’s occupants used tools to butcher deer and wild bovids for meat and marrow.
- Teams developed a combined morphological pre-screening plus ZooMS workflow to sift tens of thousands of fragments quickly, a method that could speed discovery of fragmentary hominin fossils at other richly fossiliferous sites.