A 2010 discovery in archaeology changed our understanding of human evolution.
There is a real possibility that some of you reading this carry the DNA of a species we didn't even know existed 15 years ago.
The species in question are the Denisovans. Identified from just a finger bone found in a remote Siberian cave. Despite leaving behind very few physical remains, the study of their DNA revealed that they once roamed across much of Asia and the Pacific, interbreeding with early humans who carried their legacy forward.
In 2025, scientists finally identified the famous Dragon man skull, discovered in China in the 1930’s, as most likely a Denisovan.
A recent study using molecular analysis of a 400000 year old tooth found genetic links between Homo erectus and the Denisovans, pushing their story even further back into prehistory.
A species lost to time now stares back through some of us. Not a bad legacy for a species discovered from a single finger bone.
Skull image : Wikimedia Commons / Fu et al. (2025), CC BY 4.0