A rare human jawbone pulled from the seabed near Taiwan has been identified as belonging to a Denisovan—an extinct hominin group that once lived across Asia. The finding sheds new light on the distant relatives of modern humans and adds a crucial piece to the puzzle of human evolution.
The jawbone, referred to as Penghu 1, was discovered in the early 2000s by a fisherman trawling the waters of the Penghu Channel, approximately 25 kilometers off Taiwan’s western coast. Since then, scientists have been uncertain about its origins. Its large teeth and thick jaw did not match those of known Neanderthals, modern humans, or other ancient species like Homo erectus.
Now, a team of international researchers has used a new approach—analyzing ancient proteins preserved in the fossil—to identify the individual as Denisovan. The study was published April 10 in the journal Science.
Presence of Denisovans in Asia
Denisovans were close cousins of both Neanderthals and modern humans. They lived during the same period but are far less understood, partly because their remains are rare. Most known Denisovan fossils come from a single cave in Siberia, and many insights about them have come from DNA analysis rather than bones.
The technique used in the new study, called paleoproteomics, involves examining the proteins in fossilized bone. These proteins, made up of amino acids, carry species-specific markers that survive longer than DNA. The research team determined that the Penghu 1 specimen was male and that his proteins closely resembled those of other Denisovan individuals.
A fossil Pleistocene-age hominin jawbone discovered in Taiwan has now been identified as belonging to a Denisovan, according to a new study in Science.
The findings provide direct molecular evidence that Denisovans occupied diverse climates and offer new morphological insights… pic.twitter.com/WMTuB6qDwo
— Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) April 10, 2025
“It wasn’t possible to make real meaning of this specimen even 8 or 9 years ago,” said Sheela Athreya, a biological anthropologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the study. “This study confirms what we always inferred — that there has been hominin presence in the farthest extent of eastern Eurasia throughout the Pleistocene.”
Dating the jawbone remains a challenge
The age of the jawbone remains uncertain. Traditional dating methods like carbon-14 or uranium testing couldn’t be used because the fossil had been submerged underwater for an extended period, and attempts to extract DNA were unsuccessful.
However, animal bones found nearby suggest the jaw could date to either 10,000–70,000 years ago or 130,000–190,000 years ago.
“If the specimen falls into the younger age range, it could potentially be the youngest Denisovan found to date,” said Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen and one of the study’s co-authors.
The youngest confirmed Denisovan fossil before this discovery was dated to about 40,000 years ago and was found on the Tibetan Plateau.
Wider Denisovan range highlights evolutionary diversity
The discovery, despite the uncertainty around dating, expands what scientists know about the Denisovan range. It confirms they were not limited to colder, mountainous regions like Siberia and Tibet, but also reached warmer coastal areas such as Taiwan.
In their report, the researchers noted that two distinct groups of ancient humans—slender-jawed Neanderthals with smaller teeth, and Denisovans with more robust jaws and larger teeth—lived side by side in Eurasia during the late Middle to early Late Pleistocene.
The diversity underscores the complexity of human evolution and emphasizes the importance of protein analysis in identifying unknown fossils, particularly in regions where preservation conditions render DNA recovery improbable.
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