Denisovans: Two fossilized foot bones of these extinct hominins
Artist’s concept of Penghu Denisovans walking under the bright sun during the Pleistocene in Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.
“Denisovans “The Denisovan clade (or Denisovan clade) is a sister group to Neanderthals proposed from ancient genomic evidence,” Yosuke Kaifu, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Tokyo and the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, and colleagues said in their paper.
“So far, well-preserved skulls, two mandibles, tooth remains, phalanges, and other fossil fragments from Denisova Cave (southern Siberia), Xiahe (Tibet), Harbin (northeast China), and Penghu (Taiwan) have been biomolecularly identified as belonging to this clade.”
“Based on previous morphological studies of these fossils, diagnostic morphological features of Denisovans include large brain size, a robust mandibular body, large teeth, three-rooted lower second molars, reduced or absent third molars, and non-Neanderthal-like phalanges.”
“However, Denisovan body structure, including body size and proportions, skeletal robustness, and general postcranial morphology remain unknown, except for hypothetical inferences based on DNA, due to the paucity of postcranial remains.”
In the new study, the authors examined two Denisovan foot bones, a femur and tibia known as Penghu No. 2 and Penghu No. 3, recovered from the Penghu Strait, a submerged continental shelf in the Taiwan Strait.
They analyzed ancient proteins preserved in the specimens and discovered genetic variations in collagen proteins unique to Denisovans.
Radiocarbon dating of related fossils taken from the same strait suggests the bones are between 45,000 and 43,000 years old, shortly before Denisovans are thought to have become extinct.
What surprised researchers the most was the sheer size of the bones.
Based on its measurements, scientists estimated that the femur’s owner was about 180 centimeters (5 feet 11 inches) tall and weighed about 83 kilograms (183 pounds), while the tibia’s owner could have been about 190 centimeters (6 feet 3 inches) and weighed about 91 kilograms (200 pounds).
These sizes are comparable to the largest known individuals from Pleistocene Africa and Europe, and were previously dwarfed. homo erectus Stone Age modern humans with the same regional population.
This finding goes against a long-standing prediction in paleoanthropology, known as Bergmann’s law, which predicts that populations living farther from the equator tend to be larger, while populations closer to the tropics, such as Taiwan at about 23 degrees north latitude, tend to be smaller.
The Denisovans’ unusual height may be related to their meat-based diet and hunting strategy, the researchers said.
“Given recent evidence that the Denisovans of the Tibetan Plateau exploited a wide range of animal species, including caprines (sheep and goats), megaherbivores, and carnivores, and isotopic evidence that the Penghu 3 specimen relied heavily on meat, one possible hypothesis is that its large body size was essential to their hunting strategy, which relied on a different set of tools than local animals.” homo sapiens“They achieved explosive geographic expansion beyond the Denisovan distribution and invented navigational crafts and sophisticated tools such as fishing hooks,” the authors write.
Penghu No. 2’s femur also showed some unexpected features. It was a prominent bony prominence called “A” on its back. pillar pillarit is usually associated with modern humans and is thought to reflect a highly nomadic lifestyle.
This feature may reflect either behavioral convergence with early modern humans or interbreeding between the two groups, a possibility consistent with early genetic evidence for gene flow between Denisovans and anatomically modern humans. homo sapiens In Asia.
“Although the genetic basis of the femoral column remains unclear and this hypothesis will ultimately need to be tested with genomic data from Denisovan fossils, it is consistent with genomic evidence of Denisovan introgression into modern humans in South Asia and with genomic evidence of chronological overlap between Penghu III and the earliest modern humans in the region,” the researchers said.
team’s paper posted to preprint server August 8, 2026 bioRxiv.org.
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Yosuke Kaifu others. 2026. Foot bones of Taiwanese Denisovans reveal their large body size. BioRxivdoi: 10.64898/2026.08.07.743438
Source: www.sci.news
