{
  "id": 6433089,
  "title": "Enigmatic Denisovans lived by cave in what is now China for 100,000 years, rare fossils and handcrafted tools reveal",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/09/enigmatic-denisovans-lived-by-cave-in-what-is-now-china-for-100-000",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-09T15:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Live Science",
    "slug": "live-science",
    "url": "https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/enigmatic-denisovans-lived-by-cave-in-what-is-now-china-for-100-000-years-rare-fossils-and-handcrafted-tools-reveal"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Archaeologists have discovered a cave in southwestern China that was inhabited by Denisovans for over 100,000 years. The cave, known as Bianfu Cave, contained five human fossils, hundreds of stone tools, and thousands of animal bones. These findings provide the first evidence that Denisovans lived in a forested environment and hunted large game animals. Denisovans, a lineage of humans that lived in Asia and went extinct around 30,000 years ago, are known from only a handful of fossils scattered across Siberia and Laos. This lack of evidence has limited scientists' understanding of Denisovans' bodies and culture. The newly discovered radius bone, unique among Denisovan remains, suggests that the Denisovans living near Bianfu Cave had different biomechanical demands and behavioral adaptations compared to modern humans. The cave's location in the Yunnan province of southwestern China, where Denisovans and modern humans are known to have met and mated, suggests that either group could have used the tools to butcher animals. The study of the cultural sequence from Bianfu Cave reveals that Denisovans regularly hunted, butchered, and extracted marrow from animal bones, indicating a more widespread use of bone tools among Pleistocene human groups than previously thought.",
  "summary": "Anthropologists have discovered the first-ever Denisovan arm bone in a cave in southwest China, which also held thousands of prehistoric animal bones and stone tools.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Nature",
        "title": "Denisovans from southwestern China and their subsistence strategies",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/09/denisovans-from-southwestern-china-and-their-subsistence-strategies",
        "published": "2026-09-09T00:00:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}