Short answers, pulled from the story.
Denisovans are an extinct group of archaic humans who ranged across Asia during the Middle to Late Pleistocene, approximately 200,000 to 32,000 years ago. They were first identified in 2010 from a juvenile finger bone found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. Most knowledge of them comes from DNA evidence rather than fossil bones.
Confirmed Denisovan remains have been found at Denisova Cave in Russia, Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau in China, Tam Ngu Hao 2 cave in the Annamite Mountains of Laos, the Penghu Channel between Taiwan and the mainland, and Harbin in Manchuria. DNA traces in modern populations suggest they ranged far more widely across Asia.
The Aeta Magbukon people of Luzon in the Philippines carry the highest known proportion of Denisovan ancestry of any population in the world, estimated at about 5% of the genome. Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians carry roughly 4-6% Denisovan DNA, while mainland Asians and Native Americans carry only around 0.2%.
Yes. As much as 17% of the Denisovan genome from Denisova Cave derives from the local Neanderthal population. A first-generation hybrid individual nicknamed Denny, dated to 118,100-79,300 years ago, had a Denisovan father and a Neanderthal mother, showing that interbreeding occurred directly at the cave.
The Harbin cranium, confirmed as Denisovan in 2025, is the longest archaic human skull on record, with the longest brow ridge of any known cranium. The brain volume was roughly 1,420 cubic centimeters, above the range of all human species except modern humans and Neanderthals. The face was wide but flat, the nose opening was large, and there was no chin.
A variant of the EPAS1 gene found in modern Tibetans, which allows them to function at high elevations with low oxygen levels, almost certainly originated in Denisovans and was passed to modern humans through interbreeding. The Xiahe mandible, the oldest human fossil from the Tibetan Plateau at more than 160,000 years old, shows that Denisovans occupied this high-altitude environment long before modern humans.