But the world she inhabited — a world where Neanderthals and Denisovans occupied overlapping territories, where they encountered each other frequently enough to produce children together, where both groups were making sophisticated stone tools and possibly personal ornaments — was a world of greater behavioral and social complexity than the old model of separate, distinct species in isolation would suggest.

The Challenge Of The Denisovan Fossil Record

One of the more frustrating aspects of Denisovan research is the poverty of the physical fossil record compared to the richness of the genetic evidence.

The Neanderthals are known from hundreds of specimens — skulls, jaws, teeth, limb bones, rib fragments — from sites scattered across Europe and western Asia.

The Neanderthal body plan is well-characterized: they were stocky, powerfully built, with large brains (as large as or larger than modern humans), prominent brow ridges, projecting midfaces, and a suite of anatomical features adapted to the cold climates of Ice Age Europe.

The Denisovans, by contrast, are known almost entirely from the handful of specimens recovered from Denisova Cave: three molars, the distal phalanx of a pinky finger, a long bone fragment (Denny herself), and a few additional fragments identified more recently.