You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
Although scientists have a pretty good idea what Neanderthals looked like, the appearance of their close cousins, the Denisovans, has been something of a mystery. No conclusively Denisovan skulls have been found; the species is known only from a finger bone, a few teeth, and a single jawbone. Now, a recently developed method combining epigenetics and ancient DNA has given the Denisovans a face. The technique has enabled researchers to piece together a rough composite of a young girl who lived at Denisova Cave in Siberia in Russia 75,000 years ago. The results suggest a broad-faced species that would have looked distinct from both humans and Neanderthals, though other researchers caution that it's too early to generalize the findings across the whole species.
