Denisovan Fossils Found in a Cave in Southwest China

A cave in southwestern China just gave researchers the second-richest collection of Denisovan remains ever found, outside Siberia itself. Scientists identified five individuals there, and one bone in particular is unlike anything found before.

A Cave in Yunnan’s Crossroads

The site is Bianfu Cave in Heqing County, Yunnan Province. Yunnan sits at a crossroads linking East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, exactly where geneticists believe Denisovans once interbred with the ancestors of modern humans. That overlap explains why people across Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands carry meaningful amounts of Denisovan DNA today.

Proteins Instead of DNA

Researchers screened more than 60,000 bone fragments pulled from the cave, narrowing them down to 22 possible hominin bones. They tried to extract DNA from the most promising candidates, but the cave’s old age and relatively warm conditions had destroyed it completely. Instead, the team turned to ancient proteins, which survive far longer than DNA and can still reveal a fossil’s species.

A Radius, Two Skull Fragments, and Two Teeth

Two studies published September 9 in the journal Nature describe the results. Proteomic analysis confirmed two parietal skull fragments and part of a radius, a forearm bone, as Denisovan, dated to between 167,000 and 134,000 years ago. Combined with two teeth identified earlier, that brings the total to five individuals. The radius stands out because it is the first Denisovan forearm bone ever recovered. Its overall shape lines up more closely with modern humans than with Neanderthals, even though the bone itself is large and robust like a Neanderthal’s.

What This Means for People Alive Today

Antonio Rosas, a paleoanthropologist at Spain’s National Museum of Natural Sciences who was not involved in the research, called the two papers important for understanding both Denisovan anatomy and how they lived. Biological anthropologist Shara Bailey of New York University, also not involved, said the site offers an unprecedented look at how Denisovans actually lived on the landscape. Bianfu Cave now fills a documented gap in Denisovan geography, extending their known range from Siberia and northeastern China down into southwestern China.

A Companion Study on Tools and Hunting

A second team, working alongside the fossil analysis, recovered more than 1,300 stone and bone tools from the same cave layers, dated across a wider window of roughly 190,000 to 70,000 years ago. The tools were simpler than those Neanderthals made around the same time, and researchers think Denisovans built them quickly as a flexible, on-the-spot solution rather than a refined technology. Cut marks and fracture patterns on animal bones, including deer and water buffalo, show these hominins hunted large prey and needed a genuinely skillful strategy to do it.

Sources

This report draws on two peer-reviewed studies published in Nature on September 9, 2026, led by researchers including Qiaomei Fu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.