Denny’s mother’s western Neanderthal ancestry suggests a migration of Neanderthal populations from west to east, possibly following the prey species they hunted as climates changed and ecological zones shifted.

The Altai Mountains, then, were a place where these movements converged.

Western Neanderthals pushing east.

Denisovans occupying a range that apparently extended from this region southward into Asia.

Modern humans beginning their expansion from Africa, though not yet arriving in this region at the time Denny was alive.

In this geographic context, the meeting of a Neanderthal woman and a Denisovan man in the Altai region approximately 90,000 years ago was not a magical coincidence.

It was the predictable result of two species occupying overlapping ranges in a region that served as a crossroads for ancient human movement across Asia.