The Denisovans, together with the Neanderthals, are the closest extinct relatives of modern humans. It wasn't until 2010 that scientists announced that the Denisovans existed, so much about them ...

More than a century ago, a skull was pulled from a riverbank in northeastern China. For decades, it sat hidden in a well—forgotten, unknown. The man who found it feared it would fall into the wrong ...

A groundbreaking study published on August 21 in Science has uncovered a fascinating discovery: the first people to settle in the Americas carried traces of Denisovan DNA. This genetic inheritance, ...

It was the finger seen around the world. In 2008, archaeologists working in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, Russia, uncovered a tiny bone: the tip of the little finger of an ancient human that ...

Scientists have discovered that a gene called MUC19, inherited from Denisovans through ancient interbreeding, may have played a vital role in helping Indigenous ancestors adapt as they migrated into ...

Ancient humans crossing the Bering Strait into the Americas carried more than tools and determination—they also carried a genetic legacy from Denisovans, an extinct human relative. A new study reveals ...

A prominent brow ridge with a brain as large as modern humans and Neanderthals — that’s what the archaic human group, the Denisovans, looked like, according to work published this week in Cell 1 and ...

Using cutting-edge DNA analysis, scientists have uncovered the true identity of an ancient human relative nicknamed the "Dragon Man." The mystery began with a giant, human-like skull discovered by a ...

One of the biggest mysteries in human evolution has just been solved. In 2010, a groundbreaking genetic analysis revealed that east Asia was once home to a previously unknown group of enigmatic ...

Fifteen years after the discovery of a new type of human, the Denisovan, scientists discovered its DNA in a fossilized skull. The key? Tooth plaque. By Carl Zimmer When Qiaomei Fu discovered a new ...

This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. One of the things I try to do in Our Human Story is answer ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. A fossilized ...