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 this extinct human lineage back in 2010. Were they big or small? Did they look like their cousins, the Neanderthals, or were they more like anatomically modern humans in appearance? Lastly, were they the giants of legend as some are now speculating ?
Resolving these issues is difficult as just a handful of Denisovan fossil remains have been found. They include two enormous molars, two fragments of a parietal bone from a Denisovan skull, and a finger bone from a young female who lived 75,000 years ago - all found during excavations at the famous Denisova Cave in Siberia. There is also a 160,000-year-old mandible that was found in a cave on the edge of the Tibetan plateau in northwestern China and recently identified as being that of a Denisovan.
Despite this frustrating situation, in September 2019, it was announced that Professor Liran Carmel and Dr. David Gokhman of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, had used epigenetics to analyze gene regulation and cytosine degradation in order to determine the suspected physical make up of the Denisovan face. Their finished reconstruction shows the head and neck of a young female with a rounded head, wide mouth and jaw, minimal chin, brown skin, and striking brown eyes. So well received was their reconstruction that in December 2019 the team won the 2019 Science magazine’s People’s Choice for Breakthrough of the Year .
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