All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

Denisovan

Indian family standing and smiling holding their kids in the park. Source: kristineldridge/Adobe Stock

Genetic Study Reveals Shocking Details about Ancestry of Modern Indians

Featuring a rich and diverse mix of ethnicities and cultures, the people of South Asia have always been a source of fascination for scientists interested in studying human evolution and genetics. It...
Early Homin migration caused by climate change could have been the driving force between interbreeding between Denisovans and Neanderthals. Source: Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock

Climate Change Played Cupid Between Neanderthals and Denisovans

It has been 5 years since the unearthing of Denny , a 90,000-year-old fossil specimen that had a Denisovan father and a Neanderthal mother. This find served as proof that interbreeding was quite...
Pierced deer tooth discovered from Denisova Cave in southern Siberia that yielded ancient human DNA. Source: © MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/Nature

Siberian Woman Identified from DNA Washed Off 20,000-Year-Old Deer Tooth!

Achieving an historic and groundbreaking first, an international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany have successfully extracted intact...
Left, award-winning reconstruction of the Denisovan face. Right, Young Aeta girl from Mariveles, Bataan, in 1901        Source: Left, © Maayan-Harel. Right, Public Domain

New Research Shows Philippine Indigenous Group Has Most Denisovan DNA

A small indigenous group surviving on the Bataan Peninsula on the Philippine island of Luzon has more Denisovan DNA than any other ethnic population in the world. That is the conclusion of an...
The entrance to the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia where the so-called new “Denisova Cave DNA” has proven, for the first time, the Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens occupied the same cave at the same time sometimes!   Source: Professor Richard G. Roberts / University of Wollongong  By Ashley Cowie

Denisova Cave DNA: Neanderthals, Denisovans and Humans Lived Together!

The deeply-ancient Denisova Cave in Siberia was at times home to Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans “at the same time” based on the latest Denisova Cave DNA research. Nobody in the world had...
A drawing of a Neanderthal man looking to the horizon and wondering if he will meet another "human" and, if so a human woman. The human genome it turns out has a lot of Neanderthal genes and now a Danish AI program is proving it.

AI Finds New Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA Mutations in Human Genome

Scientists affiliated with the GLOBE Institute’s GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark have created an Artificial Intelligence program that is helping them identify ancient...
Denisovan DNA in Tibetan Cave Changes History of Early Humans in Asia

Denisovan DNA in Tibetan Cave Changes History of Early Humans in Asia

An international team has found evidence that could change our understanding of a mysterious species of early humans, the Denisovans . They have found DNA from these humans in a Buddhist cave on the...
Humans and Neanderthals Have More in Common than Polar and Brown Bears

Humans and Neanderthals Have More in Common than Polar and Brown Bears

Ancient humans and Neanderthals, and Denisovans, were genetically closer than polar bears and brown bears, and so, like the bears, were able to easily produce healthy, fertile hybrids according to a...
Thanks to fossil DNA, geneticists now know that different lineages of our ancestors interbred with one another, creating new genetic lines and ensuring the modern human race is genetically diverse. Pictured: Representation of our prehistoric ancestors.      Source: Kovalenko I / Adobe stock

How Ancient Fossil DNA Reveals the Secrets of Our Human Origins

When the human genome was first discovered, it revealed some amazing genetic secrets – modern humans are way more complicated than we originally thought. During a long evolution , humankind picked up...
Did Denisovan ancestry reach European megalith builders? Source: adrenalinapura / Adobe Stock

The Far-Reaching Realms of Denisovan Ancestry Stretch to Iceland

This week it was announced that a new genetic study published in the journal Nature shows that the genomes of over 27,000 Icelanders display an admixture of modern human and Neanderthal DNA, along...
Homo antecessor shared many facial features with modern humans. Source: Terrae Antiqvae

‘Distinct’ Facial Features Have Been Around For A Very Long Time

A new study suggests that human facial features are found deep within our ancestry. Some say that the similarities between the facial features of modern humans and the controversial Early Pleistocene...
The reconstructed face of a Siberian Denisovan (right) alongside the Hebrew University’s own representation of a Sunda Denisovan (left).            Source: Left © Hernandez/Cartwright/Collins; b) © Maayan-Harel)

Two Faces of a Denisovan Revealed and Explained

Andrew Collins exclusively reveals the true face of a Siberian Denisovan. What the Denisovans might have looked like has been one of the hottest debates in paleoanthropology since the discovery of...
Ancient couple

Super Archaic Humans Mixed with Unknown 'Ghost' Species

Do you remember those school science posters that depicted human evolution with a primate standing up and becoming a modern human? Of course you do, but you may not have noticed that these posters...
Devil footprints’ on the Ciampate del Diavolo.          Source: Edmondo Gnerre / CC BY 2.0

Walking Into Danger? Italian Devil’s Footprints Mystery Revealed

An ancient set of footprints commonly known as the ‘ devil footprints ’ on the side of an extinct volcano have long frightened and intrigued people in southern Italy . In reality, it was thought that...
Depiction of an ancient human smile

Ancient Human Smile Used as an Effective ‘Get-Sex’ Tool

A study on the history of facial expressions has discovered humans developed friendly facial expressions to attract less-aggressive, selected breeding partners, as a result of ‘self-domestication’...
Mythological, demonic Rakshasa (V.R.Murralinath / Adobe Stock)

Genetic Study Suggests Denisovans Were the Mythological Rakshasas

A new genetic study of 1739 Asian individuals from 219 populations has found that on the Indian sub-continent today Denisovan DNA exists mostly among isolated, tribal communities. It also found that...
A preliminary portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. Source: Maayan Harel

Face of the Denisovans? Portrait of a Teen Revealed by Her DNA

Based on ancient DNA methylation patterns, a portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan has been recreated. Only two weeks ago I wrote a news piece for Ancient Origins in which I listed all of the known...
Early hominin works with tools. (procy_ab/AdobeStock)

Finger Bone Points the Way to Revealing Denisovan DNA Secrets

A Denisovan finger fossil is revealing secrets about this extinct Stone Age race. A decade ago, scientists excavating Denisova Cave , an ancient archaeological site in southern Siberia, discovered...
Surface model of the Xiahe mandible after digital removal of the adhering carbonate crust. Source: Jean-Jacques Hublin, ResearchGate.

The Teeth Have It: Tracing the Denisovan Legacy Around the World

A dental trait found in the Xiahe Denisovan jawbone as well as in some ancient and modern human populations now provides a rare opportunity to track the geographical reach and perhaps even the final...
Representation of a Neanderthal, one of the five archaic human groups. Source: regis allouet /Adobe Stock

Modern Humans Interbred With At Least Five Archaic Human Groups

Genetic analysis has revealed that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with at least five different archaic human groups as they moved out of Africa and across Eurasia. While two of the archaic...
Representative image of a Denisovan. Several studies have recently explored the spread of Denisovan genes. Source: ginettigino /Adobe Stock

March of the Denisovans: Evidence of Archaic Human Gene Now Detected In the Orient

The Denisovan story keeps evolving. This group of ancient hominins has been something of a mystery ever since they were first discovered in 2010 as an extinct sister group to the Neanderthals. Bits...
Baishiya Karst Cave in Xiahe,China. Source: (Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University) Insert: The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980 in Baishiya Karst Cave. (Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University)

Denisovan Jaw: The First Physical Evidence for the Mysterious Hominins Outside Their Original Cave!

Research into the Denisovan story is always fascinating. This group of ancient hominins has been something of a mystery ever since they were first discovered in 2010 as an extinct sister group to the...
Man walking in a sea cave at sunset, illustration painting. New research on the Denisovans provides more insight on their lives and population spread.

A Trove of New Denisovan Discoveries Revealed At A Recent Anthropological Conference

The annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists held at the end of March in Cleveland, Ohio, was eagerly awaited by those with an interest in human origins as it would be...
Key images from the top human origins stories of 2018: Sophisticated tools and large, all-purpose handaxes from the Olorgesailie Basin in Kenya. (Human Origins Program, Smithsonian) Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia. (Petra Korlević) Neanderthal cave art in La Pasiega, Spain (C.D Standish, A.W.G. Pike and D.L. Hoffmann) Photograph of a footprint beside digitally-enhanced image of the same feature. (Duncan McLaren) The left hemi-maxilla

Five Things We Learned About Our Human Origins in 2018

The question of what makes us human is one that is fascinating to most of us, and for many the answer lies in looking back to our roots as a species. 2018 was a fantastic year for learning new and...

Pages