A Newly Discovered Human Species' Face Has Been Uncovered
15 years ago, Dr. Qiaomei Fu made a revolutionary discovery of an entirely new human species known as the Denisovans using a tiny fragment of a pinky bone. Just a few weeks ago, scientists made another big discovery about Denisovans. They have discovered the facial structure and the appearance of this species, all because of a forgotten skull that had been sitting in a well for over 9 decades.
Her original discovery of the Denisovans back in 2010 was located in a Siberian cave named Denisova. Dr. Fu and her colleagues discovered DNA in the tiny fossil chip that was found in the cave. According to The New York Times, “The bone had belonged to a girl who was part of a third human lineage never seen before.” She and her colleagues ended up naming this new human species the Denisovans.
But having just a pinky was not enough to know about the Denisovans, and their physical facial features were a mystery because they had no artifacts of a skull artifacts. Fortunately, at the beginning of June, Dr. Fu and her colleagues discovered a skull that contained Denisovan DNA and protein.
The skull was originally found at a construction site back in 1933 in Harbin, China, by a worker. He secretly hid the skull in a well for around nine decades, and did not tell anyone about it until just before his death. The skull was later recovered in 2018 and donated to Hebei GEO University. At the university, paleoanthropologists and other scientists found that the skull dated back to over 146,000 years through a few radioactive tests.
After using the skull to determine the appearance of the Denisovans, scientists concluded that the skull came from a male. According to The New York Times, “the scientists concluded that it belonged to an enormous male with flat cheeks, a broad mouth, and no chin. An imposing brow hung over his deep-set eyes and bulbous nose.” In fact, their brains were 7 percent larger than the average human brain. Because of this, the university scientists decided that the Denisovans were a separate species, and they named them “Homo longi” in 2021.
On the other hand, Dr. Fu was skeptical whether the skull was really a Denisovan. Using a chip of the skull’s tooth and a bone from the inner ear, she and her colleagues closely inspected these bones to try and find DNA. Although they were originally unable to find any genetic material, they found proteins whose sequences suggested that the skull was from a Denisovan.
When Dr. Fu couldn’t find any genetic material, she took some plaque that was sitting on the fossilized teeth. Plaque is known to contain genetic information from the mouth and bacterial cells, which can help with the identification of the skull. As expected, she found DNA from the cells, and she successfully confirmed its Denisovan identity yet again. Dr. Fu and other passionate scientists hope to find out more about the Denisovans and discover more fossils for their research on this interesting species.
