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A 146,000-year-old skull recovered near Harbin, China, by scientists decades ago has now been found to belong to the Denisovans, an extinct relation to modern humans who lived in Siberia and East Asia.
Denisovans were first discovered as another relation to humans in 2010, and in June this year, the ancient skull was found to carry Denisovan DNA.
The finding means that scientists can begin to understand what Denisovans looked like, as until now, only their genome had been identified.
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"Until now we knew more about the Denisovan genome than we did about actual Denisovans," Bernard Wood, a professor of human origins at George Washington University, who was not part of the study, told Newsweek.
"That means we can look at other crania that are not obviously modern human or Neanderthal, and see if they match the Harbin cranium," he added.
Why It Matters
Some reports have said that the finding could potentially require a shift in our ancestral family tree, as the Denisovans have been identified as more closely related to living people than any other ancient human.
This could mean that Neanderthals, an extinct group of the human family, i.e, who belonged to the Homo genus, lived in Europe and Western Asia, are no longer our closest relatives, New Scientist reported.
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What To Know
According to New Scientist, tartar in a single tooth of the skull revealed that it had Denisovan mitochondrial DNA and the skull itself contained Denisovan proteins.
Until these findings, Denisovans had only been identified through DNA in teeth and tiny finger bones—two fossils thought to be aged between 51,000 and 84,000 years old that were found in Denisova cave in Siberia, Russia.
Bence Viola, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto who examined these original Denisovan samples, told Newsweek: "Since 2010, when we described the first fingerbone and teeth, our most important question was how these people looked."
He said that the findings relating to the skull now "makes it easier to connect other fossils, from which we don't have DNA to this population by comparing them to the cranium."
The skull had a relatively modern-looking face with heavy brow ridges and a low, long braincase, providing the first near-complete profile for Denisovans.
Viola said the skull "emphasizes what we assumed from the teeth, that these are very large and robust people."
"Harbin is one of, if not the largest, human cranium we have anywhere in the fossil record," he added.
"This provides a face for a lineage once recognized only from DNA, that was isolated from relatively unremarkable fossils including initially a pinky bone and tooth," Susan C. Antón, professor of anthropology at New York University, who is not part of the study, told Newsweek.
"Now we can start to consider all the other fossils in the region in light of this new understanding," she said.
Researchers now believe that Denisovans are closer to humans than Neanderthals, sharing a common ancestor about 1.32 million years ago, New Scientist reported.
Meanwhile, the researchers thought the Neanderthals deviated away from our evolutionary line about 1.38 million years ago.
However, the issue is still being widely debated among experts, as some scientists believe that Neanderthals and Denisovans are both equally related to living humans.
The research also adds to, and potentially shakes up, ongoing investigation into "Ancestor X"—the nickname given to the still-unknown ancient human population that is believed to sit in the human family tree right before modern humans split from the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
What People Are Saying
Viola told Newsweek: "This does not show that our ideas were wrong—I for example, and many others, thought as soon as the Harbin cranium was discovered that it likely belongs to the same population as the material from Denisova, but it is always good to have some independent confirmation."
He added: "One of the problems with the Harbin cranium is that we don't have much context for it—it was discovered during bridge construction in the 1930-40s, so we do not know exactly which layer it comes from, how old it is, and so on. I think additional research at the site, as well as at nearby archaeological sites would be interesting to see whether we can figure out a bit more."
Wood told Newsweek: "It confirms that around 150,000 years ago there were in different parts of the world modern human ancestors in Africa, and Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis and Denisovans in Eurasia."
Antón told Newsweek: "This does not change the broad strokes of what we know about human evolution. Based on the DNA we knew about the existence of the Denisovan lineage and its relationship to Neandertals, and we suspected that a likely place to find the population would be in Asia - where there were hints recently from the proteomics and anatomy of mandibles (lower jaws). We even knew a bit about what we expected the Denisovans to look like based on DNA analyses. But the picture drawn from these analyses was necessarily a bit coarse. So the link is important for providing more insight into the precise look of their face. And there are lots of human fossils in China, many much older than Harbin, so this new framework will help us understand that diversity as well."
Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological sciences at Harvard University, told Newsweek: "We've known for some time now from genetic data that the Denisovans were a species of archaic Homo— contemporaries of Neanderthals and early modern humans. But the fossils associated with this species were not very informative: a pinky bone and a tooth. Finally, we have a more complete fossil that is Denisovan. The discovery is very welcome, but I don't see how it overturns any previous theories of human evolution. It is exactly what we expected: an archaic form of human with a big face, big brow ridges, and a large brain in a long, low skull."
What Happens Next
Further research into what the findings mean in relation to theories on human evolution remain ongoing.
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