A single bone, a new history
In 2012, Russian archaeologists excavating Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains found a bone fragment 2.5 cm long. Cataloged as Denisova 11, the piece of a long bone was initially unidentifiable among over 2,000 other fragments. Years later, a technique called Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) identified the bone's collagen as belonging to a hominin. Radiocarbon dating showed the individual, a girl nicknamed 'Denny', died approximately 90,000 years ago. The bone's thickness indicated she was at least 13 years old. The fragment was discovered in a section of the cave designated as layer 11. This archaeological layer also contains stone tools and decorative objects, including bone beads and pendants.
The bone was sent to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, for genetic analysis. A team led by paleogeneticists Viviane Slon and Svante Pääbo sequenced its genome, a feat that would earn Pääbo the Nobel Prize in 2022 for his work on ancient DNA. The results were unexpected. The analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited from the mother, showed a Neanderthal lineage. The nuclear DNA, inherited from both parents, was a near-equal mix of Neanderthal and Denisovan. This made Denisova 11 the first and only known first-generation hybrid of two distinct archaic human groups.