Fossils unearthed in northern China are revealing what the mysterious Denisovans may have looked like, including heavy brow ridges, low foreheads and broad, relatively flat faces. Researchers say ancient proteins recovered from two bones identify the remains as Denisovan, allowing the team to match a clearer set of physical features to a human group long known largely through genetic evidence and scattered remains. Denisovans were first identified through DNA recovered in Siberia.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, center on the Xujiayao site in northern China’s Nihewan Basin. Excavations between 1976 and 1979 produced 20 human fossils, including pieces of skulls, jaws and teeth.
Dating studies place the remains between about 199,000 and 138,000 years old. The researchers examined a fragment of the skull’s upper side and part of a lower jaw, finding 18 ancient proteins, including a collagen marker identified in other Denisovan remains but not in modern humans or Neanderthals.
Fossils help identify the mysterious Denisovans across East Asia
Comparisons with other skulls suggest these ancient people had thick cranial bones, a wide, low skull and a pronounced brow ridge above roughly square eye sockets. Their foreheads sloped backward, while the middle of the face was fairly flat and projected only slightly.
From fossilized bone fragments, researchers were able to build a clearer description of what a Denisovan might have looked like than we’ve had before, shown here in an artist’s impression. (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology/Chinese Academy of Sciences) pic.twitter.com/KLGbAE8B7s
— Edward Elderman (@edwereddie) October 22, 2026
Their teeth and jaws also carried distinctive features, while a broad opening for the nose emerges from comparisons with other fossils. The findings do not provide a full facial reconstruction, but they offer a stronger basis for picturing Denisovans than isolated teeth and small fragments alone.
The Xujiayao bones had previously been assigned to several proposed human groups. One classification linked them to “Homo juluensis,” a name associated with unusually large-brained fossils.
A partial Xujiayao skull has an estimated braincase capacity of about 1,700 cubic centimeters (103.74 cubic inches). The new protein results place the remains within the Denisovan lineage, although they cannot determine a more precise relationship among Denisovan populations.
Other Chinese fossils may belong to the same lineage
The team also compared the Xujiayao remains with fossils from Harbin, Dali, Jinniushan and Hualongdong. Similarities in their skulls and faces suggest several ancient East Asian populations once treated as separate groups may have been Denisovans.
That broader identification rests on anatomical comparisons, however, rather than direct protein confirmation for every fossil. Denisovans shared some physical traits with Neanderthals and earlier humans such as Homo erectus, but their combination of features set them apart.
The researchers say the growing fossil record points to a lineage that occupied environments from northern Asia and the Tibetan Plateau to warmer regions farther south. Taken together, the evidence suggests Denisovans may have lived in East Asia from at least 300,000 to about 45,000 years ago.
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