Talk:Denisovan

At some point soon, this page will need the species box for Homo longi

Denisovan Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene
Holotype cranium of Homo longi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Placentalia
Order:	Primates
Superfamily:	Hominoidea
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	Homo
Species:	†H. longi
Binomial name
†Homo longi Ji & Ni in Ji et al., 2021

Soon, "Homo longi" should redirect here, and the "Homo longi" article should be renamed to "Harbin cranium" with a existing link from the "Dragon Man" disambiguation page.

The only researchers who now object to the species name "Homo longi" for the Denisovans are Svante Paabo and John Hawks who both also object to "Homo neanderthalensis" for Neanderthals. They see both Homo neanderthalensis and Homo longi as sub-species of Homo sapiens, i.e. "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" and "Homo sapiens longi", with anatomically modern humans as "Homo sapiens sapiens".

Maybe the time isn't quite yet ready to make this change, but according to ICZN rules, the name Homo longi clearly has priority and the Harbin cranium is the holotype for the species.

This preprint (under review right now) by the original authors of Ji et al. (2021) which named "Homo longi" as a species places a whole set of "Archaic East Asian" samples ((Chris Stringer's term), including those previously categorized as Homo juluensis by Bae and Wu (2024) in the "Longi clade" in Figure 4:

Feng et al. (2025) preprint

These include:

Maba
Penghu (confirmed Densiovan)
Denisova (Denisova 3 molar, defined "Denisovan")
Xujiayao
Jinniushan
Xiahe (confirmed Denisovan)
Hualongdong (HLD 6)
Harbin (confirmed Denisovan)
Yunxian
Dali

This may be enough to designate all of these as "Homo longi".

Notably, the proposed "Longi clade" does not include Xuchang (needs article) from China and Narmada from India.

• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  02:34, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

While I certainly agree that H. longi provisionally has priority for now, I'm concerned that changing the article in this way will be considered WP:OR for now, since the two recent studies didn't suggest that the species name of Denisovans should be H. longi. It's also possible that there could be future studies that question the results, or if there were another fossil named earlier than H. longi that might later proven to be a Denisovan. Unless there is a peer-reviewed study (not the preprint) which explicitly states that the species name of Denisovans should be H. longi, I don't think we can't implement this change as of yet. Junsik1223 (talk) 23:17, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree. We need to wait for reliable sources to sort out the phylogeny and naming. Donald Albury 01:21, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Based on this conversation, I've reverted the inclusion of a taxobox for now. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

See the discussion below regarding the publication of the Feng et al. (2025) study in Science and some of the quotes from the study.

It is no longer WP:OR to include the Speciesbox.

There have been no published objections to this classification of the Denisovans as H. longi based on 104 ancient specimens and 533 morphological characteristics by any academic researchers.

It is not for us editing this page to censor or refute academic studies, especially one published in the journal Science.

If you or anyone else has objections to this classification of the Denisovans as H. longi by Feng (2025), then say so in responses in the topic below and cite credible sources that respond to the findings of the study. Otherwise, if no one can respond, we need to revert and include the Speciesbox.
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  19:28, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

There have been no published objections to this classification of the Denisovans because the paper just came out. It takes months at least for papers to come out referencing and responding to another paper. We can wait to see what other papers think of this classifcation scheme. See also Wikipedia:Recentism. If other subsequent papers come out supporting Homo longi as scientific name for the Denisovan species, then we can have the taxobox discussions. Pinging previous discussion participants @Dunkleosteus77 @Donald Albury @Junsik1223 for their views Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

As I said above, we need to wait. One paper may or may not lead to a major shift in the generally held view of an acadenic topic, but it takes time for a new consensus to emerge. Consensus in an academic field does not emerge as fast as it can in Wikipedia. It takes time for workers in a field to read a paper, think about it, do their own research, write a response if they think it is needed, submit it to an appropriate journal, and then wait for it to appear, if accepted. Doing all that in less than a few months would be unusually fast. There will almost certainly be responses both supporting and refuting the new proposal. We will need to see a number of responses before we can begin to detect whether a new consensus is forming. New ideas that create a lot of initial excitement may lose favor on further consideration. Donald Albury 22:05, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I have to agree with Albury, even beyond the taxobox this article has been changing exceptionally fast in response to recent papers and espousing a sense of consensus on the classification of pre-modern humans in East Asia. I'm worried that the article as it stands is communicating proteomic or genomic analyses as like the "correctest" answer, like whatever these sources of information say must be true and there's no room for debate Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:58, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  I wasn't saying that the change should happen now, but that the Feng study will be published relatively soon, and when that happens, it will be a good time to add the species box.

H. longi does not have priority if you're trying to include Dali Man in this grouping. And you also have other specimens around Middle Pleistocene East Asia, like Maba Man (originally "H. mabaensis") or Penghu 1 ("H. tsaichangensis") Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 00:43, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, "H. daliensis" is considered a conditionally proposed name by Bae et al. (2023) and Reed (2025), so that wouldn't necessarily make it validly named (conditional nomina published after 1960 are not considered available based on ICZN articles). "H. mapaensis" (sometimes spelled "H. mabaensis") is also a conditionally proposed name as explained by Reed (2025). "H. tsaichangensis" by Mark McMenamin should really be out of the question since this was never validly published according to ICZN article 8.5.3 (even without considering how controversial Mark McMenamin is). Junsik1223 (talk) 04:23, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Since the topic below on the Talk page was missed by some people, I am quoting it as well here.

The Feng et al. (2025) study has been published in Science:
The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans

If anyone can find any quotes from reputable academic researchers objecting to the classification of the Denisovans as Homo longi, then link to them and quote them here on the Talk page.
If no one can find and list any objections, then the Speciesbox remains on the page, and the deletion is reverted.
It is not our role to censor or object to peer-reviewed academic studies, especially one published in the journal Science, which has no objections to it from any other academic researchers.

Quotes from the study:

"Morphometric and phylogenetic analyses suggest that it is an early member of the Asian H. longi clade, which includes the Denisovans and is the main part of the sister group to the H. sapiens clade."

"Recently, Xujiayao, Xuchang, Xiahe, Penghu, and Denisovans were proposed as a new species of Homo (20). Our phylogenetic analysis shows that these Homo samples (except for Xuchang) instead belong to the monophyletic longi clade."

"Our parsimony analysis, based on the limited number of informative characters scored for the Denisovans, suggests that Denisovans most likely belong to the longi clade."

See this video by Chris Stringer: Chris Stringer discusses the 1 million year old Yunxian cranium
Also see his review of this article which he was a main author:
Why the Yunxian study helps sort out the "Muddle in the Middle": some personal reflections on our new paper (Feng et al. Science 2025) Part 1
Why the Yunxian study helps sort out the "Muddle in the Middle": some personal reflections on our new paper (Feng et al. Science 2025) Part 2]
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  20:49, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

You're making the classic mistake of anyone who naively reads the scientific literature, which is to take the latest scientific paper and treat it as an effectively paradigm shifting truth, without considering the broader debate surrounding the topic. Newspaper coverage of scientific papers tends to be like this, but it doesn't mean that Wikipedia has to be. See also this recent commentary in ScienceAdviser

Want to start a fistfight at an anthropology conference (or at least a polite verbal tussle)? Ask which species Neanderthals and their close cousins, the Denisovans, belong to. ... In truth, the boundaries between species are often messy, contentious and, ultimately, arbitrary. ... No less contentious are the proposed designation for Denisovans. No formal species name has been given to this hominin, which was first identified in 2010 based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequenced from a finger bone found in Siberia’s Denisova Cave. But one proposed candidate is Homo longi, a species name proposed for a skull found in Harbin, China, that was described in 2021. Researchers argued its morphological characteristics were distinct enough from other known hominins to warrant a separate species name. Then, earlier this year, ancient proteins confirmed the Harbin skull was a Denisovan. Now, a paper out this week in Science argues, based on morphological analysis, that a 1-million-year-old Chinese skull known as Yunxian 2, previously classified as Homo erectus, belongs to H. longi, too . And based on physical similarities between known Denisovans, the Harbin skull, and Yunxian 2, the authors argue that Denisovans most likely belong to the H. longi clade. So, does that mean Denisovans should now be called Homo longi? According to the rules set down by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, there’s a good case to be made that they should. After all, according to the ICZN’s so-called Principle of Priority, “the valid name of a taxon is the oldest available name applied to it, unless that name has been invalidated or another name is given precedence.” So, assuming you buy the argument that modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans deserve to be classified as separate species in the first place, then there’s a good argument that Denisovans should now be considered H. longi. Still, there’s room for dissent. Some have argued that the Harbin skull may not accurately represent the breadth of Denisovan diversity, and just because the Harbin Denisovan can be called H. longi doesn’t mean that all Denisovans should be lumped under the same taxonomic category. In this view, there may yet be other hominins currently categorized under the broad term Denisovan that deserve entirely different species names. Time and debate and flurries of papers will eventually settle this issue. Punches may or may not get thrown.

This commentary suggests that the matter will not be settled by this single paper, and thus the species taxobox should be omitted until there is wider consensus on the matter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

See also commentary on the paper from BBC News But other experts in a field where disagreement over our emergence on the planet is rife, say that the new study [Feng et al. 2025]'s conclusions are plausible but far from certain. and But other researchers, such as Dr Aylwyn Scally, an evolutionary geneticist at Cambridge University, say there are considerable uncertainties in both methods. "One has to be particularly tentative about the timing estimates, because those are very difficult to do, regardless of what evidence you're looking at, be that genetic or fossil evidence," he said. "Even with the largest amount of genetic data, it is very difficult to place a time when these populations may have co-existed to within 100,000 years, or even more." He added that while Profs Ni and Stringer's conclusions were plausible, they were far from certain, and that more evidence was needed to be sure. "That picture is still quite unclear to us, so if the conclusions of this research are supported by other analyses, ideally from some genetic data, then I think we would start to be increasingly confident about it," he told BBC News. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:35, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

Paleontologist and science communicator Erika Matthews discusses the Feng et al. (2025) study and the ideas from it that agree with the scientific consensus from the paleontological community and the controversies

She says that the paleontological community agrees with the general classification of the Denisovans as being in a new Homo longi clade and that this conforms to ICZN rules, but that the classification by the authors of the 1 million year old Yunxian cranium as belonging to it along with Homo antecessor doesn't conform to the genomic data. Neither does the clustering of Homo sapiens with this new Homo longi / Denisovan clade make sense according to the ancient DNA evidence. The genomic evidence, as in the case of Hominidae, should take precedence over cladistics based on morphology.

So according to her, the paleontological community consensus seems to be that the Denisovans are now in a Homo longi clade.
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  02:38, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

The Feng et al. (2025) study has been published in Science. Time to add the Homo longi speciesbox.

The Feng et al. (2025) study has been published in Science:
The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans

"Morphometric and phylogenetic analyses suggest that it is an early member of the Asian H. longi clade, which includes the Denisovans and is the main part of the sister group to the H. sapiens clade."

"Recently, Xujiayao, Xuchang, Xiahe, Penghu, and Denisovans were proposed as a new species of Homo (20). Our phylogenetic analysis shows that these Homo samples (except for Xuchang) instead belong to the monophyletic longi clade."

"Our parsimony analysis, based on the limited number of informative characters scored for the Denisovans, suggests that Denisovans most likely belong to the longi clade."
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  21:15, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Agree Several studies have shown that Denisovan is almost certainly the same as H. Longi and there doesn't seem to be many researchers deputing this, the article already considered them one and the same so I don't get why a speciesbox Isn't included PharaohCrab (talk) 18:06, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Adding specimens from the Feng (2025) H. longi clade to the list of Denisovan specimens

While it may seem prudent to wait for genomic or proteomic analysis to confirm the Denisovan affiliations of the list of specimens clustered under H. longi by Feng (2025), this may never happen for most of these specimens. Dali and Jinniushan were clustered with H. longi by Wu (2021), Bae and Wu (2024), and Feng (2025). Apparently no controversy about the classification. HLD-6 was grouped under H. longi only by Feng (2025), but there is no controversy about the dating and morphology being appropriate for H. longi. On the other hand, Christopher Bae in an interview said that he believes that Maba is a Neanderthal, but he has not published anything to support this assertion. Yunxian is about 1 million years old, and including it as a Denisovan would contradict the genomic dating of the Denisovans, both autosomal DNA from Denisova 3 and the several mitogenomes, as well as the low coverage Y chromosomes from Denisova 4 and 8.

Remember that genomic identification is not held as the standard for Neanderthals, very pre-Out of Africa Homo sapiens, or any other hominin species.

People reading the article will want to know about these ancient samples now named "Denisovans" by the media. The criterion for including specimens in the list should be whether they were published as such in peer-reviewed studies.

We can debate about Yunxian and Maba. The case for Maba being a Neanderthal is weak and unpublished, but as I said, Yunxian is potentially more controversial. Xuchang was only clustered as H. juluensis by Bae and Wu (2024), but as far as I know, it is just the paratype of H. juluensis with no morphological support except possibly cranial volume.

I therefore think that it's appropriate to include the non-controversial specimens as Denisovans, especially if they have been classified as such by more than one study.
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  02:11, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

What about mentioning Yunxian Man in the list of Denisovan specimens?

Feng (2025) was actually published in Science and the main point of the article was to group the reconstructed Yunxian with H. longi and the Denisovans.

See this video by Chris Stringer:

Chris Stringer discusses the 1 million year old Yunxian cranium

However, see his review of this article which he was a main author:

Why the Yunxian study helps sort out the "Muddle in the Middle": some personal reflections on our new paper (Feng et al. Science 2025) Part 1

Why the Yunxian study helps sort out the "Muddle in the Middle": some personal reflections on our new paper (Feng et al. Science 2025) Part 2]
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  21:56, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

The high coverage genome of Denisova 25 will be published soon

The abstract was made available at the ESHE 2025 conference.
The genome is 24x coverage and is from a male, so it includes a high-coverage Denisovan Y chromosome for the first time.

Here are a couple of maps from the study
Notice that the map "The Denisovan fossil record (with molecular evidence)" has all the Middle Paleolithic specimens from China, including Maba and Xuchang, and also includes Narmada from India as well.

The abstract is on page 175

A new Denisovan genome sheds light on the peopling of Asia and Oceania

Stéphane Peyrégne1, Diyendo Massilani1,2, Yaniv Swiel1, Arev P. Sümer1, Alba Bossoms Mesa1, Michael James Boyle1,2, Leonardo N. M. Iasi1, Cesare de Filippo1, Bence Viola3, Elena Essel1, Sarah Nagel1, Julia Richter1, Antje Weihmann1, Barbara Schellbach1, Hugo Zeberg1,4, Johann Visagie1, Maxim B. Kozlikin5, Michael V. Shunkov5, Anatoly P. Derevianko5, Kay Prüfer1, Benjamin M. Peter1, Matthias Meyer1, Svante Pääbo1, Janet Kelso1

1- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany · 2 - Current address: Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA · 3 - Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada · 4 - Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden · 5 - Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia

While it is widely accepted that modern humans arose in Africa, the timing of the initial arrival and survival of modern humans in different regions of the world remains unresolved. Archaeological evidence suggests multiple dispersals of modern humans out of Africa, with some fossil finds supporting early modern human presence in China by 100 thousand years ago (ka) and in Southeast Asia by 70 ka. However, genomic data suggests that people living today descend primarily from a single rapid dispersal after 50 ka, as all non-Africans carry Neandertal ancestry from a shared admixture event. Genetic contributions from earlier migrations, if any, were minimal (<1%), but uncertainties persist regarding the relationships and migration routes of ancestral populations across Eurasia and Oceania.Investigating interactions between early modern humans and Denisovans, archaic humans who lived in Asia before modern humans, can shed light on these dispersal(s). Previous work has shown that the ancestors of present-day Asians and Oceanians met and mixed with multiple, genetically distinct Denisovan populations. However, the availability of only a single high-quality Denisovan genome has constrained our ability to characterise the diversity of Denisovan ancestry in modern humans and reconstruct the history of interactions.We report a second high-quality Denisovan genome reconstructed from a molar found at Denisova Cave and dated to around 200 ka. We determined that this individual belonged to an early Denisovan population that split about 220 ka from later Denisovans at the cave. Using this new Denisovan genome we reassess the distribution of different Denisovan ancestry components in present-day people. The geographic distribution of these components today offers clues about where Denisovans lived and the routes taken by modern humans as they colonised Asia and Oceania. Furthermore, comparisons of introgressed Denisovan DNA segments across populations and estimates of the times of introgression shed light on the number and timing of these migrations. These findings offer a new perspective on the history of early modern human dispersals.
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  21:17, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

The preprint is out:
A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan
• Archæogenetics  ^TALK  19:17, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

New study of the dental proteome of Homo erectus from China shows that Denisovans have admixture from Homo erectus not found in Neanderthals

Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China

The study found two SAPs (amino acid polymorphisms) unique to H. erectus. One of these, AMBN(M273V) / rs564905233 A>G, was also found in several Denisovan individuals from China, including Denisova 25, Harbin, Denisova 3, and Penghu 1. From these, through Denisovan admixture, it passed to people from the Philippines (21% of 101 samples), South Asians (1.7%) and people from Papua New Guinea (0.71%).

This solves the puzzle of which species the "super-archaic" admixture found in Denisovans comes from.

This finding is worth a new paragraph / subject heading on its own. Edits added. • Archæogenetics  ^TALK  15:12, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Once again, you show a naive understanding of the paleoanthropological literature. Every new paper to you is a revelation that must be stated as absolute fact. We've already had skepticism about the results from John Hawks . Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:31, 15 May 2026 (UTC)