Denisova Cave

Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2025

In a year full of Denisovan discoveries, I look at some of the top highlights of research.

Dec 19, 2025 • John Hawks

The humanity of a new Denisovan

Identification of the Harbin skull by mtDNA and proteins and what it means to be Homo sapiens.

Jun 22, 2025 • John Hawks

The problem when all the fossils are male

Protein data shows that most known Denisovan teeth come from male individuals, hamstringing attempts to understand the variation of this group.

May 8, 2025 • John Hawks

The impressive genetic diversity of the last Neanderthals

The new “Thorin” genome from Grotte Mandrin represents a previously-unknown Neanderthal deep history.

Sep 15, 2024 • John Hawks

Tracing the signature of African-to-Neandertal gene flow

A new study of African genetic variation yields a more accurate picture of the genetic exchanges between ancient Africans and Neandertals 250,000 years…

Oct 20, 2023 • John Hawks

How collagen fingerprinting is changing the way archaeologists understand ancient sites

Katarina Douka and coworkers are identifying the species of ancient bone fragments at a massive scale from Denisova Cave.

Sep 22, 2018 • John Hawks

Should we be surprised if Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans didn’t form stable hybrid zones?

A geneticist asks why we don't see more persisting hybrid populations, and I find an answer in the theory of population source-sink dynamics.

Aug 2, 2016 • John Hawks

Another Denisovan from Denisova Cave

A review of the 2015 work identifying the Denisova 8 specimen by Susanna Sawyer and coworkers.

Nov 18, 2015 • John Hawks

New findings from the Denisova 3 genome at high coverage

Sequencing work by Matthias Meyer and coworkers highlights the demography of ancient Denisovans and genes that may make today's people different from…

Aug 30, 2012 • John Hawks

A mysterious mitochondrial sequence from Denisova Cave, Russia

A small fragment of finger bone with a DNA sequence that represents a previously-unknown form of hominin.

Mar 24, 2010 • John Hawks

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