Short answers, pulled from the story.
Scientists announced the discovery of the Denisovan species in 2010 based on DNA extracted from a single finger bone found in Denisova Cave. This juvenile female specimen originated from the Altai Mountains of Siberia and was originally excavated by Russian archaeologists in 2008.
Researchers have debated naming this group as a distinct species or an archaic subspecies of Homo sapiens for many years. In June 2025, mitochondrial DNA and proteomic analysis of the Harbin cranium provided definitive evidence linking it to the Denisovan lineage after earlier proposals like H. altaiensis lacked proper type specimens.
Brain size reached approximately 1,420 cubic centimeters placing it above most known human species except Neanderthals and modern humans. The Harbin cranium featured a low and long skull with extremely wide upper face and enlarged nose possibly adapted for cold air while brow ridges were inflated and thick.
Denisovans inhabited regions spanning Siberia Tibet Laos Taiwan and Manchuria according to fossil evidence found at five distinct locations. The Xiahe mandible represented the earliest recorded human presence on the Tibetan Plateau dating back over 160,000 years while genetic traces suggest their range extended further east into East Asia.
Modern human genomes contain varying percentages of Denisovan ancestry ranging from roughly 5% in Melanesians to just 0.2% in mainland Asians and Native Americans. As much as 17% of the Denisovan genome derived from local Neanderthal populations while about 4% came from an unidentified archaic hominin diverging over a million years ago.