Short answers, pulled from the story.
Denisova Cave sits approximately 150 meters above the right bank of the Anuy River within the Bashelaksky Range of the Siberian Altai Mountains. The site lies near the village of Chorny Anui and roughly 300 kilometers south of Barnaul, which serves as the regional capital of Russia.
A single finger bone fragment from layer 11.2 of the East Gallery was discovered in 2008 by Svante Pääbo and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. This fossil belonged to a young female who lived between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago before researchers reclassified her group as Homo longi in June 2025.
Whole genome sequencing revealed that the individual designated DC1227 or Denisova 11 was the direct offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Her mitochondrial DNA matched her Neanderthal parent while her nuclear DNA traced back to her Denisovan father who carried ancient introgressed Neanderthal DNA from over 300 generations prior.
Remains of 27 species of large and medium-sized mammals have been recovered including cave hyena, cave lion, woolly mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros. A 32,000-year-old equine fossil identified as Equus ovodovi also shows close genetic affinity with samples from Proskuryakova Cave in Khakassia.
A sewing needle made from bird bone estimated at 50,000 years old was discovered within the cave in 2016. This artifact is described as the most ancient needle known though another possible needle dates to about 10,000 years earlier from South Africa.