A Jaw Underscores the Ancient Range of a Human Relative

A bone discovered in Taiwan turns out to have belonged to a Denisovan, a lineage of humans related to Neanderthals

- CARL ZIMMER

FOR DECADES, FISHERMEN sailing off the coast of Taiwan have sometimes discovered fossils in their trawling nets: the bones of elephants, buffalo and other big mammals that lived tens of thousands of years ago, when the sea level was so low that Taiwan was linked to Asia by a land bridge.

But in 2010, a Taiwanese paleontologist was presented with a particularly odd find: a fossil that looked like half a gorilla's jaw. Scientists have puzzled over it ever since. Now the mystery of the underwater jaw has been solved. On Wednesday, a team of researchers announced that it belonged to a Denisovan, a member of a mysterious lineage of humans related to Neanderthals.

The discovery significantly expands the range of firmly identified Denisovan fossils, previously known from Siberia and Tibet.

"Indeed, Denisovans were present all the way east to the coast," said Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist and an author of the new study.