Scientists recently found something very special just off the coast of Taiwan. They determined that a jawbone found there, designated Penghu 1, belonged to these Denisovans, an extinct branch of the human family tree. This surprising discovery is what demonstrated the existence of Denisovans. It implies that they were prevalent all over Asia throughout the Pleistocene epoch, living alongside other hominins such as Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
Denisovans are a more recent addition to the human evolutionary tree, known first from a few fossils that had lived in what is now Siberia. To date, the majority of these specimens have been excavated from Denisova Cave in Siberia, which makes this discovery of Penghu 1 even more remarkable. A commercial fisherman first found the jawbone in the early 2000s. He snagged it from the seabed of the Penghu Channel, a body of water off the west coast of Taiwan. Its age has remained a mystery ever since. Estimates put it at anywhere between 10,000 and 70,000 years old, possibly even as old as 130,000 to 190,000 years.
The designation of Penghu 1 as a Denisovan was made possible by novel improvements in paleoproteomics. To identify these proteins, researchers studied ancient proteins that were extracted from the jawbone. They found that it belonged to a Denisovan male and identified a distinctive amino acid and protein profile unique to this ancient group. This exciting use of technology holds promise for finding other previously unknown human fossils waiting to be discovered across other regions.
The importance of this find is even greater than the recognition of one new specimen.Denisovans weren’t merely contemporaries or neighbors of Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens. They were also very successful in the most extreme climates of Pleistocene eastern Eurasia.A testament to these individuals’ adaptability, this finding adds to the body of evidence that Denisovans occupied a much wider geographical range than previously thought.
The youngest known Denisovan fossil is around 40,000 years old and was found on the Tibetan Plateau. Still, the Penghu 1 jawbone indicates that these archaic humans were potentially living much farther south and east than previously known sites. The findings suggest Denisovans were able to adapt to a variety of environments across Asia. These groundbreaking results deepen our understanding of ancient human evolution and migration patterns.
The rarity of Denisovan fossils has made it challenging for researchers to piece together their history and relationships with other hominins. With only a few fossils documented so far, including those from Denisova Cave and now Penghu 1, every new discovery holds immense potential for expanding knowledge in anthropology and archaeology.
