In China, researchers say fossils from Xujiayao show what a Denisovan face looked like

Researchers in China say a collection of fossilized skulls, teeth and jaws from Xujiayao in northern China shows what the Denisovans, a group of ancient human relatives, looked like. The team reports its findings in Nature. The features they describe are a low, sloping forehead, a massive brow ridge that curves backward, rectangle-like eye sockets, flat cheeks and a moderately elevated bridge of the nose.

The Xujiayao fossils

The Xujiayao remains are a collection of 20 fossils that are at least 130,000 years old. Workers found them in the 1970s alongside animal remains and tools. At the time, it was unclear what type of human they belonged to, and later researchers classified them as a species called Homo juluensis.

How proteins identified them

Qiaomei Fu, a geneticist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, and her team analyzed ancient proteins from some of the fossils and identified the remains as Denisovan. They studied small protein fragments, called peptides, from two Xujiayao bones and compared them with peptides from humans and Neanderthals. They found a single amino-acid change in multiple peptides from the Xujiayao bones and other East Asian fossils. It is a known marker for identifying Denisovans, and it did not appear in human or Neanderthal samples.

Sally Wasef, a palaeogeneticist at the Queensland University of Technology, says protein analysis complements DNA studies. Proteins can survive longer than DNA without fully degrading, although DNA gives more detail about an individual.

Why it matters

Scientists first described Denisovans in 2010, after sequencing genetic material from a finger bone found in a cave in Siberia. Ancient proteins have since helped identify Denisovan remains elsewhere in Asia, including the first near-complete Denisovan skull, found near Harbin. “We are finally starting to put a face to the Denisovan,” Wasef says. Fabrice Demeter, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Copenhagen, says the findings add to growing evidence that Denisovans were a widespread and potentially diverse group of humans.

Source: Nature news by Rachel Fieldhouse, 21 October 2026, on a Nature paper by Qiaomei Fu and colleagues. Image: artist depiction of a Denisovan, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.