Latest news with #Penghu1
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Extremely rare Denisovan jawbone discovered in Taiwan
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A mysterious human jaw discovered off the coast of Taiwan doesn't belong to our species or Neanderthals, but to another extinct relative, Denisovans. In a new study, researchers used a cutting-edge technique that analyzes proteins to determine which species the jawbone belonged to, which had been a mystery since its discovery in the early 2000s off the west coast of Taiwan. Their approach showed that the individual was Denisovan, a "cousin" of Neanderthals and humans that roamed throughout Asia during the Pleistocene epoch, and it opens the door to identification of unknown human fossils. "The same technique can and is being used to study other hominin fossils to determine whether they too are Denisovans, Neanderthals or other hominin populations," study co-author Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen, told Live Science. Welker and an international team of experts wanted to better understand the Penghu 1 jawbone, a specimen that was netted by a fisherman from the floor of the Penghu Channel, roughly 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) off the west coast of Taiwan. In the decade since Penghu 1 was documented, paleoanthropologists have disagreed on whether the robust jaw with large teeth came from a Homo erectus, an archaic Homo sapiens, or a Denisovan. Denisovans are extinct human relatives who lived at the same time as Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. But unlike Neanderthals, whose bones have been found throughout Europe and western Asia for more than a century, Denisovans are mostly known from DNA, since only a handful of fossils have ever been found, most of which come from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Without a large collection of fossils, it is difficult for experts to identify new Denisovan skeletons and to figure out where they lived and how they're related to humans. Related: 'Mystery population' of human ancestors gave us 20% of our genes and may have boosted our brain function Using the relatively new technique of paleoproteomics, or the analysis of ancient proteins, the research team showed that Penghu 1 was male and that his particular suite of amino acids and proteins was most similar to Denisovans. They published their findings April 10 in the journal Science. "It wasn't possible to make real meaning of this specimen even 8 or 9 years ago," Sheela Athreya, a biological anthropologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. "This study confirms what we always inferred — that there has been hominin presence in the farthest extent of eastern Eurasia throughout the Pleistocene." One limitation to the new study, however, is that Penghu 1 can't be dated confidently using traditional methods such as carbon-14 or uranium dating because the specimen was waterlogged for so long, and DNA extraction attempts also failed. Animal bones found with the jawbone suggest two age ranges, Welker said — either 10,000 to 70,000 years ago or 130,000 to 190,000 years ago. "If the specimen falls into the younger age range, it could potentially be the youngest Denisovan found to date," he added. Currently, the youngest Denisovan fossil is 40,000 years old and was found on the Tibetan Plateau. But even with the uncertainty in exact dates, the identification of Penghu 1 as a Denisovan shows that these groups were widely distributed throughout Asia, from frigid regions like Siberia to warm and humid areas like Taiwan. RELATED STORIES —DNA from Mysterious 'Denisovans' Helped Modern Humans Survive —Neanderthals and Denisovans Mated, New Hybrid Bone Reveals —Denisovan DNA may increase risk of depression, schizophrenia, study suggests "It is now clear that two contrasting hominin groups – small-toothed Neanderthals with tall but gracile mandibles and large-toothed Denisovans with low but robust mandibles," the researchers wrote in the study, "coexisted during the late Middle to early Late Pleistocene of Eurasia." This conclusion shines a light on the diversity and evolution of Homo, and the researchers' next steps will be to use paleoproteomics to identify more archaic bones from the genus. "The meaningful result of this work is that we can do so much more with previously unprovenienced fossils found in channels and riverbeds in Asia," Athreya said. "That's exciting!" Editor's note: This story was first published on April 10, 2025.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A Fossil Hunter Stumbled Upon a Jawbone. It Just Might Rewrite the Story of Human Migration.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." A jawbone fossil from a previously unknown hominin was finally identified as belonging to the elusive Denisovans—a species whose only other fossils have come from Siberia and Tibet. Though DNA sequencing of the fossil (known as Penghu 1) was not possible because of a lack of collagen, its proteome—all the proteins that occur in an organism or tissue—showed links to Denisovans. Penghu 1 is the first fossil evidence that Denisovans did not only inhabit regions with cold climates, but spread throughout East and Southeast Asia. When amateur fossil hunter Kun-Yu Tsai was browsing an antique market in Southern Taiwan in 2008, he eyed a jawbone fossil that looked suspiciously (but not exactly) human. Told it had surfaced from the waters of the Penghu Channel in fishermen's nets, Tsai felt compelled to buy the fossil, and donated it to Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Sciences. He was right about the mandible belonging to a human ancestor, but what he didn't know was that he had stumbled on an ancient human enigma. That same year, archaeologists searching for fossils in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia found a finger bone and molar embedded in the permafrost of Denisova Cave. Sequencing of the finger's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) revealed that it was from neither a Neanderthal nor modern human, but there was still not enough information to determine the species. Only in a later study was most of the genome was sequenced, and the species was determined to be completely new to science. These new hominins were called Denisovans. Almost twenty years after Tsai's chance find, the mysterious jawbone he picked up has now also been identified as Densiovan. It is one of very few Denisovan fossils to have ever been unearthed, along with those discovered in Denisova Cave (more fragments were found since the finger bone and molar) and another mandible and rib from Baishya Karst Cave in Xiahe County, China. Researchers from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan and the University of Copenhagen were finally able to identify the jawbone as Denisovan through paleoproteomics, which involves analyzing ancient proteins. 'Mandibular bone and dental enamel were identified as the most promising tissues for extraction, with richer and better preserved protein profiles,' the research team, led by Takumi Tsutaya, wrote in a study recently published in Science. Previous attempts to study the DNA of the specimen—now known as Penghu 1—were unsuccessful, as there was not enough collagen for carbon dating. Uranium dating also failed as a result of interference from uranium deposited by seawater. Instead, the researchers looked at the specimen's proteome (all the proteins expressed by an organism), and were able to identify 4,2421 amino acid residues from 51 proteins. There turned out to be five proteins showing variations that were either specific to Denisovans or had phylogentic associatiations with them. The only reference genome sequence for Denisovans comes from Denisova 3, the finger bone specimen from Siberia, and Penghu 1 was phylogenetically close. Tooth enamel revealed that Penghu 1 came from a male individual, and both Penghu 1 and Xiahe 1 may have something to do with the way Densiovan morphology is perceived. Densiovans have been characterized as having a robust and low jaw, but the only mandibles known to exist are male. Jawbones in Neanderthal fossils are higher and more gracile. It is possible that some other fossils thought to be Denisovan candidates could be females, and there may be others which have been misidentified as other hominin species because of a more gracile jaw. The finger bone and molar from Siberia are both female—but no jawbone was ever found. The age of Penghu 1 remains unknown, except that it is probably younger than 450,000 years. Because it emerged from the ocean, there was no way to study the surrounding sediment and determine an age, so the only way to guess at what time period it could be from is using what is already known about ancient sea levels. During the Pleistocene, sea levels were low enough for Penghu 1 to have on been part of the mainland between either 130,000 and 190,000 years ago or 10,000 and 70,000 years ago. Submerged areas that used to be above water could explain why Densiovan DNA has been found in peoples of mainland and island Southeast Asia, and even as far as Australia. Aboriginal peoples of Australia carry Densiovan DNA, suggesting a widespread migration, but there was no fossil evidence of these hominins having lived in warmer regions until now. Densiovans were thought to be endemic to cold climates when the only fossils we had found were those from Siberia and Tibet, but Penghu 1 speaks to their ability to adapt to a much wider range of environments—from frozen caves to lush, humid tropics to parched desert lands. 'The identification of Penghu 1 as a Denisovan mandible confirms the inference from modern human genomic studies that Denisovans were widely distributed in eastern Asia,' Tsutaya's team said in the same study. Next time you find yourself meandering around an antique shop, you might want to ask about any fossils that appear even remotely human. Apparently, there's a chance that's where more of our ancient history is hiding. 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South China Morning Post
11-04-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Denisovans first discovered in Russia reached Taiwan Strait, fossil gene evidence suggests
In a groundbreaking discovery that may rewrite the map of human prehistory, fossilised genetic evidence has revealed that Denisovans – an elusive sister species to Neanderthals – ventured far beyond their Siberian origins, reaching the subtropical shores of the Taiwan Strait. Advertisement Published in Science journal on Friday, the identification of a male Denisovan jawbone aged 130,000–190,000 years from the seabed in Taiwan's Penghu Channel marks the first direct proof of their presence in the region, shattering assumptions about their geographic limits. The fossil, dubbed Penghu 1, not only underscores these archaic humans' astonishing adaptability to diverse climates – from frigid Siberian caves to balmy Southeast Asian coastlines – but also strengthens the genetic link between Denisovans and modern Asian populations, who today carry a DNA legacy from these forebears. The fossilised mandible of a male Denisovan, an extinct archaic human, discovered at the Penghu Channel off the coast of Taiwan. Photo: Chun-Hsiang Chang and Jay Chang/Handout As the farthest-reaching Denisovan fossil ever found, Penghu 1 challenges classical migration narratives and shows how these ancient cousins shaped humanity's evolutionary story. Last year, National Science Review reporters posed a sharp and vital question to Svante Paabo, recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for groundbreaking discoveries in the field of ancient human genomes and human evolution: 'What could be the next breakthrough in ancient human genomics?' The professor's answer was very concise: Denisova hominin. Advertisement The Denisova hominin is an enigmatic relative of modern humans.
CNN
10-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
Jawbone dredged up from the seafloor expands the range of a mysterious species of ancient human
Summary Scientists have identified a fossilized jawbone found off Taiwan's coast as belonging to a Denisovan man. Researchers confirmed the ancient human's identity by analyzing protein fragments in teeth attached to the jaw. This discovery marks the third confirmed location where Denisovans lived, spanning diverse environments across Asia. Denisovans were first identified in 2010 from DNA extracted from a finger bone in Siberia. The mysterious humans don't have a widely accepted official species name yet. A fossilized jawbone dredged up by a fishing net from the seafloor 15 ½ miles (25 kilometers) off the coast of Taiwan in 2010 looked human, but for years scientists failed to nail down exactly where it fit in the human family tree. Now, scientists have been able to confirm the identity of the mystery fossil, known as Penghu 1, through analyzing ancient protein fragments contained in teeth still attached to the jaw. The jawbone belonged to a Denisovan man, according to the findings published Thursday in the journal Science. 'We've determined and shown over the past couple of years that these proteins can survive longer than DNA does, and that if we have decent recovery, we can say something about the evolutionary ancestry of a specimen,' said study coauthor Frido Welker, an associate professor of biomolecular paleoanthropology at the University of Copenhagen's Globe Institute in Denmark. Fishermen working off the coast of Taiwan long have dredged up the bones of ancient animals — elephants, water buffalo and hyenas — in their nets, relics of an ice age past when sea levels were lower and the ocean channel was a land bridge. The Denisovan man likely lived on this strip of land that once existed between what's now China and Taiwan. This discovery establishes the third place that the enigmatic ancient humans first identified in 2010 were definitively known to have lived and shows that the Denisovans occupied a diverse range of environments: Siberian mountains, the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau and the humid subtropical latitudes, Welker added. Fishermen who find fossils among their catch often sell their finds to antique shops, where collectors pick them up, said study coauthor Chun-Hsiang Chang, a curator of paleontology at Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Science. The museum has thousands of fossils found from the seabed in its collection. One collector brought the jawbone, now identified as Denisovan, to the museum wanting to know more about the specimen, and Chang said he immediately realized it was unusual and encouraged the collector to donate or sell the fossil to the museum, which he did. A paper Chang coauthored in 2015 argued the fossil belonged to the genus Homo, the grouping to which our species, Homo sapiens, and other ancient humans such as Neanderthals belong, but colleagues were not able to extract any ancient DNA from the fossil and couldn't verify the exact species. It also wasn't possible to date the fossil accurately. Scientists believe it has an age range of between 10,000 and 70,000 or 130,000 and 190,000 years old, dating the bone to a time when past sea levels in that vicinity were low. Chang took the specimen to Copenhagen in 2022 hoping to learn more from Welker and other scientists who were pioneering techniques to extract proteins from fossils, a field known as paleoproteomics. Chang recalled airport security in Copenhagen stopping him when the case containing the jawbone passed through an X-ray machine. 'They stopped me and wanted me to open (the case),' he said. 'I thought maybe they were going to arrest me.' Chang said he was allowed to leave only after sharing his credentials and giving the security personnel 'a very short human evolution lesson.' Before testing the jawbone, Welker and his colleagues sampled an elephant bone and pig bone from the same part of the seabed to work out which extraction methods would work best and determine whether proteins were still present. The team found proteins and proceeded with extracting them. Two amino acid sequences from the proteins recovered from the specimen matched those known from the Denisovan genome — a complete set of genetic information sequenced from DNA. What's more, the lab work detected a type of protein with a sex-specific peptide called amelogenin, and Y-chromosome specific peptides revealed that the Denisovan individual was male, Welker said. Denisovans were first identified in 2010 in a lab using DNA sequences extracted from a tiny fragment of finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains, which is how the group got its name. Genetic analysis subsequently revealed that the Denisovans, like Neanderthals, had once interbred with early modern humans. Traces of Denisovan DNA found in present-day people suggest the ancient species likely once lived across much of Asia, and the recent discovery of Denisovan fossils from outside their namesake cave has begun to show they occupied a wide range of places in Asia. In 2019, scientists shared news that a jawbone found in a cave on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, known as the Xiahe mandible, contained a Denisovan molecular signature. A Denisovan rib bone from the same cave was reported in 2024. In 2022, scientists identified a tooth unearthed at a cave in Laos as Denisovan because it closely resembled the tooth from the Xiahe mandible. The clue placed the species in Southeast Asia for the first time, though scientists were not able to get any definitive molecular information from the molar to confirm it. The good preservation of the proteins in the Penghu 1 mandible is surprising, given that it had been at the bottom of the sea for a long time, said archaeologist Zhang Dongju, a professor at China's Lanzhou University who worked on the Xiahe jawbone. She was not involved in the study. 'With the accumulation of Denisovan fossils and the increase of Denisovan-specific molecular signature identified, identification of Denisovan fossils will be easier,' she said. 'And I believe more Denisovan fossils will be found and identified in (the) future. And we will know more about this mysterious species.' Katerina Douka, an associate professor in archaeological science at Austria's University of Vienna, described Denisovans as a paradox because scientists have detailed genetic information about the species but few fossils, so little is known about how they looked, although she noted they had 'exceptionally large' molars. The Penghu 1 and Xiahe mandibles did not have wisdom teeth, which could indicate that their jaws did not protrude forward in their face, said Ryan McRae, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. 'Neither mandible has a chin, like modern humans do, so the front of their jawline would probably look flatter than ours,' McRae said by email. 'The authors wisely point out that the Penghu mandible is male, which means that it may exhibit the larger, more robust end of variation for this species. In other words, female Denisovans could look the same, or quite different, we just don't know yet.' Douka and McRae weren't involved in the study. The mysterious humans don't have a widely accepted official species name yet, although some scientists have suggested Homo juluensis, a classification that groups Denisovan fossils with other fossils from China, including 'dragon man,' a skull described in 2021. Chang said that he and his colleagues hope to revisit the 4,000 or so fossils in the National Museum of Natural Science's collection that have been gathered from the seabed in the Taiwan Strait over the past 40 to 50 years and use the same proteomic methods applied to the Penghu 1 jawbone to investigate whether any other fragments belong to Denisovans. 'Maybe inside my collection there's some treasure we don't know about,' Chang said.
CNN
10-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
Jawbone dredged up from the seafloor expands the range of a mysterious species of ancient human
Summary Scientists have identified a fossilized jawbone found off Taiwan's coast as belonging to a Denisovan man. Researchers confirmed the ancient human's identity by analyzing protein fragments in teeth attached to the jaw. This discovery marks the third confirmed location where Denisovans lived, spanning diverse environments across Asia. Denisovans were first identified in 2010 from DNA extracted from a finger bone in Siberia. The mysterious humans don't have a widely accepted official species name yet. A fossilized jawbone dredged up by a fishing net from the seafloor 15 ½ miles (25 kilometers) off the coast of Taiwan in 2010 looked human, but for years scientists failed to nail down exactly where it fit in the human family tree. Now, scientists have been able to confirm the identity of the mystery fossil, known as Penghu 1, through analyzing ancient protein fragments contained in teeth still attached to the jaw. The jawbone belonged to a Denisovan man, according to the findings published Thursday in the journal Science. 'We've determined and shown over the past couple of years that these proteins can survive longer than DNA does, and that if we have decent recovery, we can say something about the evolutionary ancestry of a specimen,' said study coauthor Frido Welker, an associate professor of biomolecular paleoanthropology at the University of Copenhagen's Globe Institute in Denmark. Fishermen working off the coast of Taiwan long have dredged up the bones of ancient animals — elephants, water buffalo and hyenas — in their nets, relics of an ice age past when sea levels were lower and the ocean channel was a land bridge. The Denisovan man likely lived on this strip of land that once existed between what's now China and Taiwan. This discovery establishes the third place that the enigmatic ancient humans first identified in 2010 were definitively known to have lived and shows that the Denisovans occupied a diverse range of environments: Siberian mountains, the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau and the humid subtropical latitudes, Welker added. Fishermen who find fossils among their catch often sell their finds to antique shops, where collectors pick them up, said study coauthor Chun-Hsiang Chang, a curator of paleontology at Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Science. The museum has thousands of fossils found from the seabed in its collection. One collector brought the jawbone, now identified as Denisovan, to the museum wanting to know more about the specimen, and Chang said he immediately realized it was unusual and encouraged the collector to donate or sell the fossil to the museum, which he did. A paper Chang coauthored in 2015 argued the fossil belonged to the genus Homo, the grouping to which our species, Homo sapiens, and other ancient humans such as Neanderthals belong, but colleagues were not able to extract any ancient DNA from the fossil and couldn't verify the exact species. It also wasn't possible to date the fossil accurately. Scientists believe it has an age range of between 10,000 and 70,000 or 130,000 and 190,000 years old, dating the bone to a time when past sea levels in that vicinity were low. Chang took the specimen to Copenhagen in 2022 hoping to learn more from Welker and other scientists who were pioneering techniques to extract proteins from fossils, a field known as paleoproteomics. Chang recalled airport security in Copenhagen stopping him when the case containing the jawbone passed through an X-ray machine. 'They stopped me and wanted me to open (the case),' he said. 'I thought maybe they were going to arrest me.' Chang said he was allowed to leave only after sharing his credentials and giving the security personnel 'a very short human evolution lesson.' Before testing the jawbone, Welker and his colleagues sampled an elephant bone and pig bone from the same part of the seabed to work out which extraction methods would work best and determine whether proteins were still present. The team found proteins and proceeded with extracting them. Two amino acid sequences from the proteins recovered from the specimen matched those known from the Denisovan genome — a complete set of genetic information sequenced from DNA. What's more, the lab work detected a type of protein with a sex-specific peptide called amelogenin, and Y-chromosome specific peptides revealed that the Denisovan individual was male, Welker said. Denisovans were first identified in 2010 in a lab using DNA sequences extracted from a tiny fragment of finger bone found in Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains, which is how the group got its name. Genetic analysis subsequently revealed that the Denisovans, like Neanderthals, had once interbred with early modern humans. Traces of Denisovan DNA found in present-day people suggest the ancient species likely once lived across much of Asia, and the recent discovery of Denisovan fossils from outside their namesake cave has begun to show they occupied a wide range of places in Asia. In 2019, scientists shared news that a jawbone found in a cave on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, known as the Xiahe mandible, contained a Denisovan molecular signature. A Denisovan rib bone from the same cave was reported in 2024. In 2022, scientists identified a tooth unearthed at a cave in Laos as Denisovan because it closely resembled the tooth from the Xiahe mandible. The clue placed the species in Southeast Asia for the first time, though scientists were not able to get any definitive molecular information from the molar to confirm it. The good preservation of the proteins in the Penghu 1 mandible is surprising, given that it had been at the bottom of the sea for a long time, said archaeologist Zhang Dongju, a professor at China's Lanzhou University who worked on the Xiahe jawbone. She was not involved in the study. 'With the accumulation of Denisovan fossils and the increase of Denisovan-specific molecular signature identified, identification of Denisovan fossils will be easier,' she said. 'And I believe more Denisovan fossils will be found and identified in (the) future. And we will know more about this mysterious species.' Katerina Douka, an associate professor in archaeological science at Austria's University of Vienna, described Denisovans as a paradox because scientists have detailed genetic information about the species but few fossils, so little is known about how they looked, although she noted they had 'exceptionally large' molars. The Penghu 1 and Xiahe mandibles did not have wisdom teeth, which could indicate that their jaws did not protrude forward in their face, said Ryan McRae, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. 'Neither mandible has a chin, like modern humans do, so the front of their jawline would probably look flatter than ours,' McRae said by email. 'The authors wisely point out that the Penghu mandible is male, which means that it may exhibit the larger, more robust end of variation for this species. In other words, female Denisovans could look the same, or quite different, we just don't know yet.' Douka and McRae weren't involved in the study. The mysterious humans don't have a widely accepted official species name yet, although some scientists have suggested Homo juluensis, a classification that groups Denisovan fossils with other fossils from China, including 'dragon man,' a skull described in 2021. Chang said that he and his colleagues hope to revisit the 4,000 or so fossils in the National Museum of Natural Science's collection that have been gathered from the seabed in the Taiwan Strait over the past 40 to 50 years and use the same proteomic methods applied to the Penghu 1 jawbone to investigate whether any other fragments belong to Denisovans. 'Maybe inside my collection there's some treasure we don't know about,' Chang said.
