Cave fossils in China reveal lives of mysterious human relatives

Archaeologists excavating a cave in southwestern China have unearthed fossilized remains that belonged to an enigmatic population of extinct hominins, revealing new details about their long-lost way of life.

The new haul — which includes four teeth, part of an arm bone and two skull fragments — brings the total number of known fossils from these mysterious human relatives, called the Denisovans , to more than 20. The discovery also establishes Bianfu Cave in the mountains of Yunnan province as a new and exciting locale in the study of human origins.

Alongside the seven Denisovan fossils, the researchers uncovered tools made of bone and stone, as well as fossilized pollen and animal remains. The finds paint a picture of how the Denisovans who called the cave home made a life in the region’s conifer forests 167,000 to 134,000 years ago, according to two studies published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

“We first identified some isolated teeth and then from the huge amount of animal fossils, we identified the bones — but the fragments were very hard to find at the beginning,” said Hao Li, a research professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in Beijing and a coauthor on both papers.

“We are very lucky because this is the first site in south China to have the direct association between Denisovan fossils and rich cultural remains,” he added. “This is very rare.”

Previously, research on the Denisovans has largely had to rely on isolated discoveries with uncertain and convoluted backstories, such as a skull retrieved from a well in northeastern China and a jawbone dredged from the seafloor by a fishing boat. A team of scientists first identified Denisovans in 2010 from ancient DNA extracted from a tiny finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia, which is how the group got its nickname. The breakthrough was the first time a previously unknown species of hominin had been identified solely based on DNA.

However, Neanderthals, Denisovans and our own species — Homo sapiens — are all known to have sheltered and intermingled in Denisova Cave. Teasing out concrete details about the Denisovan lifestyle from this site alone proved challenging.

That’s why Bianfu Cave, named after the bats that once lived in it, excites paleoanthropologists: It appears to have been occupied only by Denisovans for a substantial period of time. Consequently, researchers found the fossils in their original context alongside tools and other remains that allow archaeologists to date them more reliably and infer unprecedented information about the group’s habits and behavior.

Scientists have hypothesized that Denisovans lived throughout Asia. People today in southeast Asia and Oceania carry the most Denisovan DNA, indicating that Denisovans interbred with modern humans in these areas tens of thousands of years ago. However, most Denisovan fossils have been found in North Asia.

The Bianfu Cave discovery marks only the third place that Denisovans are definitively known to have lived and shows this group occupied a diverse range of environments: Siberian mountains, the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau and the subtropical latitudes.

Researchers combed through 60,000 bone fragments excavated from the cave, identifying two dozen or so that appeared to closely resemble hominin bones and testing them to see whether the fossils contained any useful biomolecular information.

The study authors determined that no ancient DNA had been preserved in the remains. But the team recovered amino acid variants, molecules that make up proteins, that suggested three bones and two teeth were Denisovan, according to the new studies.

The research team categorized the two other teeth, which were too fragile to be sampled in the lab, as Denisovan based on their morphology and comparing them with other known teeth from the species.

“DNA is more vulnerable to degradation than proteins, and it is hard for it to be preserved in these fossils as they were more than 100,000 years old. The relatively warmer climate in Yunnan also hampered DNA preservation,” said study coauthor Qiaomei Fu, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Fu was also part of the team that first identified Denisovans in 2010.

Hebei GEO University

The team dug three trenches at the cave site to a depth of 6.6 meters (22 feet), but only one trench yielded human fossils, in two layers of sediment that date back 167,000 to 134,000 years. Stone tools, however, showed up in 10 layers of the same trench, suggesting the site was occupied from 190,000 to 70,000 years ago.

One of the new studies focused on the marks on animal bones and stone tools unearthed in the cave. The authors found that Denisovans who lived in Bianfu fashioned tools from stone and bone and hunted large prey including water buffalo, bison-like gaur, and red and sika deer that lived in the forested environment. The cave’s inhabitants also extracted marrow from bones for sustenance, according to the study.

The stone tools the Denisovans used were not particularly sophisticated, according to Li, who described the artifacts as an “expedient technology.”

“I would not say ‘simple’ because it’s a kind of flexible adaptation,” Li said. “When they used the stone tools, they did not invest a lot of time.”

Li added that it’s most plausible that the site’s only occupants were Denisovans. The team plans to test the cave floor’s sediment for hominin DNA to confirm their hypothesis. “We can say the stone tool technology is stable with continuity, and the hunting strategy is continuous,” he said.

As well as extending the known range of the species, the new fossil finds include the first known Denisovan arm bone. The scientists can glean limited information from the bone fragment, but its radius was short, a somewhat like that of Neanderthals, according to Ryan McRae, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

“And the insertion of the biceps muscle is oriented such that it may have been more efficient at flexing the elbow,” McRae, who wasn’t involved in the research, said.

“More interesting is the site itself,” he added. “It tells us about Denisovan occupation in one location over a sizable span of time while also filling in some geographical gaps in our understanding of Denisovans.”

Eddie Gerald/Alamy Stock Photo

Until last year, scientists knew very little about what Denisovans looked like, as most of the fossils discovered thus far had been small fragments. However, Fu and her colleagues in 2025 published research on a striking skull known as Dragon Man . The specimen had come to light in 2018 after being stashed at the bottom of a well in the city of Harbin in northeastern China for decades. The research team had extracted genetic material from Dragon Man and linked it to the Denisovans, finally giving the species a face and a proposed scientific name: Homo longi.

Much about the group remains a mystery as scientists only have a finger bone, rib fragment and the forearm bone described in the new research to study. There is still much to uncover about what the Denisovans looked like, how they lived and why they disappeared.

It’s possible Yunnan — which means “south of the clouds” — may provide some answers to these and other questions. Several Stone Age sites have been discovered in the region in recent years, yielding finds such as rarely unearthed wooden tools that date back 300,000 years .

Li said that Yunnan would have offered our archaic human relatives a hospitable climate, rich in plant and animal life. The province likely acted as a crossroads connecting north and south Asia.

“We are in the margins of Tibetan Plateau, above 2,000 meters but not too high altitude,” Li said. “This is a hot spot for biodiversity and would have provided rich resources for ancient hominins in this region.”

考古学家在中国西南部的洞穴中发掘出属于一个神秘的已灭绝人科动物群体的化石遗骸，揭示了他们早已消失的生活方式的新细节。

此次新发现的化石包括四颗牙齿、一部分臂骨和两块头骨碎片，使已知的丹尼索瓦人化石总数超过20件。这一发现也确立了云南省山区的卞福洞作为研究人类起源的一个新兴且令人兴奋的地点的地位。

除了七具丹尼索瓦人化石外，研究人员还发现了骨制和石制工具，以及化石化的花粉和动物遗骸。根据周三发表在《自然》杂志上的两项研究，这些发现描绘了16.7万至13.4万年前居住在该洞穴中的丹尼索瓦人在该地区针叶林中的生活方式。

“我们首先发现了一些零星的牙齿，然后从大量的动物化石中，我们识别出了骨骼——但一开始很难找到这些碎片，”中国科学院青藏高原研究所研究员、这两篇论文的合著者郝力说。

他补充说：“我们非常幸运，因为这是华南地区首个丹尼索瓦人化石与丰富文化遗存直接相关的遗址。这种情况非常罕见。”

此前，对丹尼索瓦人的研究主要依赖于零星发现，而这些发现的背景故事往往扑朔迷离、扑朔迷离，例如在中国东北一口井中打捞出的头骨，以及渔船从海底打捞出的下颌骨。2010年，一个科学家团队首次通过从西伯利亚丹尼索瓦洞穴发现的一根细小指骨中提取的古代DNA，确认了丹尼索瓦人的存在，这也是该族群得名的由来。这一突破是人类首次仅凭DNA就识别出一个此前未知的古人类物种。

然而，已知尼安德特人、丹尼索瓦人和我们智人都曾在丹尼索瓦洞穴中居住和生活过。仅凭这一遗址就想了解丹尼索瓦人的生活方式，着实困难重重。

这就是为什么以曾经栖息于此的蝙蝠命名的卞福洞令古人类学家兴奋不已：它似乎在相当长的一段时间内只有丹尼索瓦人居住。因此，研究人员在洞穴中发现了原始环境中的化石，以及工具和其他遗骸，这使得考古学家能够更可靠地确定化石的年代，并推断出关于该族群生活习性和行为的前所未有的信息。

科学家推测丹尼索瓦人曾生活在亚洲各地。如今东南亚和大洋洲的人们携带的丹尼索瓦人DNA最多，这表明数万年前丹尼索瓦人可能与这些地区的现代人类有过基因交流。然而，大多数丹尼索瓦人化石都发现于北亚。

卞福洞的发现标志着丹尼索瓦人第三个被确凿证实居住的地方，表明该族群曾生活在多种多样的环境中：西伯利亚山脉、高海拔的青藏高原和亚热带纬度地区。

研究人员仔细检查了从洞穴中挖掘出的 6 万块骨骼碎片，从中识别出大约 24 块与人类骨骼非常相似的骨骼，并对其进行测试，以查看这些化石是否包含任何有用的生物分子信息。

研究作者确定，这些遗骸中没有保存古代DNA。但根据这项新研究，研究团队提取到了氨基酸变体（构成蛋白质的分子），这些变体表明，其中三块骨头和两颗牙齿属于丹尼索瓦人。

研究团队根据另外两颗牙齿的形态，并将它们与该物种的其他已知牙齿进行比较，将这两颗牙齿归类为丹尼索瓦人牙齿，因为它们太脆弱，无法在实验室进行取样。

“DNA比蛋白质更容易降解，而且由于这些化石距今已有10万多年历史，因此很难保存下来。云南相对温暖的气候也不利于DNA的保存，”该研究的共同作者、中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所教授傅巧梅说道。傅巧梅也是2010年首次发现丹尼索瓦人的团队成员之一。

河北地质大学

研究团队在洞穴遗址挖掘了三条深达 6.6 米（22 英尺）的探沟，但只有一条探沟出土了人类化石，化石位于两层沉积物中，年代可追溯至 16.7 万年前至 13.4 万年前。然而，在同一条探沟的 10 层沉积物中发现了石器工具，这表明该遗址在 19 万年前至 7 万年前就有人居住。

其中一项新研究聚焦于洞穴中出土的动物骨骼和石器上的痕迹。研究人员发现，居住在卞福的丹尼索瓦人利用石头和骨头制作工具，并猎杀大型猎物，包括生活在森林环境中的水牛、类似野牛的印度野牛以及马鹿和梅花鹿。研究还表明，洞穴居民会从骨头中提取骨髓作为食物。

李表示，丹尼索瓦人使用的石器工具并不特别复杂，他将这些器物描述为一种“权宜之计”。

李说：“我不会用‘简单’这个词，因为这是一种灵活的适应。他们使用石器工具时，并没有投入太多时间。”

李补充说，最有可能的情况是，该遗址的唯一居民是丹尼索瓦人。研究团队计划检测洞穴底部沉积物中的古人类DNA，以验证他们的假设。“我们可以说，石器技术稳定且具有延续性，狩猎策略也具有延续性，”他说。

除了扩展该物种的已知分布范围外，新发现的化石还包括已知的首块丹尼索瓦人臂骨。科学家们可以从这块骨骼碎片中获取有限的信息，但据华盛顿特区史密森国家自然历史博物馆的古人类学家瑞安·麦克雷（Ryan McRae）称，其桡骨较短，与尼安德特人的桡骨有些相似。

“而且，肱二头肌的附着点方向可能更有利于弯曲肘关节，”未参与这项研究的麦克雷说。

“更有趣的是遗址本身，”他补充道。“它向我们展示了丹尼索瓦人在相当长的一段时间内在同一地点居住的情况，同时也填补了我们对丹尼索瓦人了解的一些地理空白。”

Eddie Gerald/Alamy Stock Photo

直到去年，科学家们对丹尼索瓦人的外貌知之甚少，因为此前发现的化石大多是细小的碎片。然而，傅及其同事于2025年发表了一项关于一具引人注目的头骨——“龙人”——的研究。这具头骨标本于2018年重见天日，此前它一直被埋藏在中国东北城市哈尔滨的一口井底数十年。研究团队从“龙人”中提取了遗传物质，并将其与丹尼索瓦人联系起来，最终确定了该物种的样貌，并提出了一个拟定的学名：长人（Homo longi）。

关于丹尼索瓦人，我们仍有很多谜团，因为科学家们目前只有一根指骨、一块肋骨碎片和新研究中提到的前臂骨可供研究。关于丹尼索瓦人的外貌、生活方式以及他们消失的原因，还有很多未知之处等待我们去揭开。

云南——意为“云雾之南”——或许能为这些问题以及其他一些问题提供答案。近年来，该地区发现了多处石器时代遗址，出土了一些极为罕见的文物，例如距今30万年的木制工具。

李说，云南为我们远古人类祖先提供了适宜的气候，动植物资源丰富。该省很可能曾是连接南北亚的十字路口。

李说：“我们位于青藏高原边缘，海拔2000米以上，但不算太高。这里是生物多样性热点地区，曾为该地区的古代人类提供了丰富的资源。”