I completely missed the memo when this happened but two separate molecular studies published earlier this year convincingly show that a known hominin skull unearthed in the 1930s at Harbin, China, actually represents a Denisovan. After more than a decade of knowing this hominin species (as closely related to us as Neanderthals) only by the genome, some small fossil bones, and traces of DNA left in modern humans, Denisovans finally have a face. I only became aware of this when I looked at a paper using predicted phenotype trends to try and identify Denisovans among the known fossils, and the Harbin skull, whose identification as Denisovan was published while that paper was under review, came out as the one most likely to be a Denisovan, so that's a third line of independent evidence.
As I have covered the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes for 20 years now (see the Neanderthal tag), I found this extremely exciting and was a bit shocked that it didn't make a bigger splash in the general media. After all, this is a discovery on equal terms with the first Neanderthal skeleton. So obviously I had to do another Denisovan feature, which is out now:
~Finding Denisovans
Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 19, 6 October 2025, Pages R897-R899
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky (starting 22.2.2025), but for this purpose I have to post them again, outside of the thread. (I think threads only transfer if the first post was transferred, so once I start a new thread it should work.)
Last year's thread is here .
The Harbin cranium, which has now been identified as Denisovan by several independent measures, has a size within the range of modern humans but some distinct archaic features. (Photo: Reprinted from Ni et al. (2021) Innovation 2, 100130, with permission.)
