Archaeologists excavating a cave in southwestern China have unearthed fossilized remains that belonged to an enigmatic population of extinct hominins, revealing new details about their long-lost way of life.
The new haul — which includes four teeth, part of an arm bone and two skull fragments — brings the total number of known fossils from these mysterious human relatives, called the Denisovans, to more than 20. The discovery also establishes Bianfu Cave in the mountains of Yunnan province as a new and exciting locale in the study of human origins.
Alongside the seven Denisovan fossils, the researchers uncovered tools made of bone and stone, as well as fossilized pollen and animal remains. The finds paint a picture of how the Denisovans who called the cave home made a life in the region’s conifer forests 167,000 to 134,000 years ago, according to two studies published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
“We first identified some isolated teeth and then from the huge amount of animal fossils, we identified the bones — but the fragments were very hard to find at the beginning,” said Hao Li, a research professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in Beijing and a coauthor on both papers.
