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Early risers may have inherited faster body clocks from Neanderthals

15 February 2023

Modern humans who have inherited genetic variants related to circadian rhythms from extinct hominins are more likely to be morning people

'Dragon man' claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain

25 June 2021

A large skull belonging to an ancient human that was found in China has been classified as a new species called Homo longi – but critics say the skull might actually have belonged to a Denisovan

Thousands of Denisovan tools reveal their Stone Age technologies

26 February 2020

A cache of Denisovan tools shows how these extinct humans moved from using sharp stone flakes 150,000 years ago to stone blades and chisels around 60,000 years ago

44,000-year-old hunting scene is earliest painted ‘story’ ever found

11 December 2019

Cave paintings discovered in Indonesia reveal ancient artists were conjuring imagined scenes 20,000 years earlier than we thought – but who painted them?

Oldest Denisovan art discovered on 100,000-year-old bone fragments

18 July 2019

Etchings on pieces of ancient bone found in China could be the clearest evidence yet found that the mysterious Denisovans were capable of advanced cognition

Mystery hominin had sex with ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans

10 June 2019

A strange signal in ancient and modern human DNA suggests the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans must have mated with an unknown species of human

Major discovery suggests Denisovans lived in Tibet 160,000 years ago

1 May 2019

The first Denisovan remains discovered outside Siberia suggest our extinct cousins lived at extreme altitude in Tibet long before our species made it there

Extinct 'Denisovan' people may have lived on Earth's highest plateau

29 November 2018

The Tibetan Plateau is a tough environment so we thought humans arrived only about 12,000 years ago, but it seems someone was there 40,000 to 30,000 years ago

Chimp evolution was shaped by sex with their bonobo relatives

24 May 2018

Some chimpanzee populations gained useful DNA from interbreeding with bonobos, and one may even have become more gentle and “bonobo-like” in its brain structure and behaviour