The combination of these methodological advances means that the ancient genomic record of the Denisovans and Neanderthals will continue to grow — slowly, because preservation of material this old is exceptional rather than routine, but steadily.

Each new specimen adds a data point that helps clarify the picture of who these ancient humans were, where they lived, and how they related to each other and to modern humans.

Denny will remain, for the foreseeable future, the most remarkable single specimen in this growing dataset.

No other ancient individual has provided such direct, unambiguous evidence of a first-generation cross between two ancient human species.

Her genome is a unique record of a unique event — an event that happened once, was preserved by an accident of extraordinary fidelity, and was eventually read by a science that was ready, barely, to understand what it said.