Fossil trove reveals Denisovan life in Chinese cave for over 100,000 years

An international team led by Chinese scientists has unearthed seven Denisovan fossils alongside stone and bone tools in Bianfu Cave, Yunnan, offering the first direct link between Denisovan remains and their material culture. The site, occupied from 190,000 to 70,000 years ago, shows Denisovans hunted deer and buffalo in a conifer forest, per two papers in Nature.

Bottom line — The finds triple the known Denisovan fossil record and provide the clearest picture yet of their hunting, toolmaking, and adaptation.

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• The fossils include the first known Denisovan forearm bone (radius), per Xinhua.
• Protein analysis, not DNA, identified the fossils because warm, humid conditions degraded genetic material, per CNN.
• The cave was urgently excavated before quarrying destroyed the entrance; researchers recovered some 60,000 bone fragments, per the ABC.
• Co-author Hao Li described the stone tools as 'expedient technology,' indicating flexible adaptation rather than simplicity, per CNN.
• Denisovans focused hunting on prime-age adult medium-to-large ungulates, with cut marks showing butchery for meat and marrow, per the Global Times.
• Bone tools at the site show technological parallels with Neanderthal Middle Palaeolithic bone industries, according to Haaretz.
• This is only the third site where Denisovans are definitively known to have lived, after Denisova Cave in Siberia and Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau, per CNN.

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