Fossil evidence sheds light on a mysterious human ancestor

An ancient fossil discovered about 40 years ago is helping us piece together where humans come from.

The fossil, which was found by a monk in the Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau, is one of very few pieces of concrete evidence we have on an ancient human ancestor called the Denisovan. Denisovans were first discovered back in 2010, in the Denisova Cave in Siberia, hence their name. But this is the first time we've seen any evidence of them outside of that location — and it's a whopping 1,240 miles away.

The Denisovans, Gizmodo explains, are thought to have interbred with Homo sapiens, as traces of their DNA can be found in some present-day Asian and Australian populations. And this new discovery, detailed in the journal Nature, adds more to the picture. We know that rather than being confined to one small area, the species was "geographically dispersed," so it's possible that we'll find more evidence of the Denisovans in other places.

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This particular fossil is a jawbone, dated to be around 160,000 years old by the researchers. It's theorized that the Denisovans interbred with humans much more recently — about 50,000 years ago — before eventually going extinct, much like the Neanderthals. They had specialized genes that allowed them to adapt to living in higher altitudes, as the Tibetan Plateau would require, which can still be found in some Himalayan peoples today.

Learn more about this new find at Gizmodo.