Discovery of 200,000-year-old bones could
shed light on recent human ancestors

Did they respond to stimulus, like Sonia S said they might?

I wonder if they wore masks?

I remember some big name archeologist, years ago, found a tooth somewhere in a desert and wouldn't you know it, it changed everything we know about our ancestors. It's all a big rip off if you ask me. But they need those dollars from big funding. And honestly, I've always doubted carbon dating, but that's just me.

"lithics and faunal remains" stone tools, and bones of the critters they used them to chop up for chow. "Not Vegans".

Oh...they are called denisovan because they are found only in the Denesova Cave, in Russia.

Is this before or after the great flood?

Humans have no ancestors and the earth ain’t 200,000 years old!

200k years is "recent"?? Name one thing that indicates anything, culturally, that isn't about 50K or so, at most.

There they go again.

Denisovans, like the Neanderthals that were alive at the same time, were early stone age populations that lived in Central and Eastern Europe and Western Asia more than 200,000 years ago. Modern human ancestors evolved from earlier species in Africa and began to emerge from Africa about 40-50,000 years ago. As they migrated into Asia and Europe they interbred with the Neanderthals and Denisovans and eventually drove them to extinction. These mixed populations continued to migrate into Asia, India, Northern and Central Europe, North America, and Australia forming the modern human population groups known today.

The real issue is that "Science" in Academia is a SCAM...it all gets down to 'How do I get a Grant' so I can get rich studying something arcane! Yes we have ancestors but the entire DNA picture is pretty blurred...

They found them in the Oval Office

For those people who want to explore how ancient DNA relates to current human populations there is a very interesting if somewhat dense book, "Who We Are and How We Got There", by the genetic researcher David Reich. The modern indigenous humans with the most Denisovan DNA are from New Guinea and Australia. These islands are separated from mainland Asia, so the current explanation is that the interbreeding occurred in Southeast Asia with a separate Denisovan population, called Austrailo-Denisovans, distinct from the Siberian-Denisovans. So modern humans, Neanderthals, and both Denisovan populations lived at the same time about 70,000 years ago. There's actually a fifth ancient large-brained human population that lived on Flores Island in present day Indonesia known as the Hobbits (homo floresiensis) who were just over 3 feet tall.

Imagine this scene...200,000 years from now. Visiting Martians doing an archeological dig find two skeletons... One from Danny DiVito, the other from Shaq. Are they going to call them "Same Species"? Not a chance...

God has the answers for me in His time. . .

Carbon dating is limited to about 50,000 years. However, examining geological layers and other factors may, I stress may allow an estimate of age. Also, IIRC, there was an article posted here several years ago which analyzed DNA patterns and concluded that humans originated where we thought they did from SW Asia, not Africa. Many pieces to this puzzle.

This so-called article is woefully short of information. Sheesh.

Also found with the body was a letter stating his auto warranty was about to expire.

The "out of Africa" hypothesis is grounded in the archeological evidence that this was where the first homids that walked upright and used tools lived about 1.5 million years ago. But what recent DNA analysis of later fossils is suggesting is that there was a much earlier migration from Africa to East Asia possibly as the result of climate change during the Ice Age. This Asian population branched at some point genetically to create the paths for Neanderthals and Denisovans but before this branch a subset of this group remigrated back to Africa to evolve into the African ancestors of modern humans. This hypothesis is based on DNA rates of mutation which need to be better confirmed by actual fossil evidence. The problem is that almost all the really ancient analysis has come from European and African fossils and very little from fossils in Tibet or China because of historical political restrictions. The ancient migration of modern humans from Africa is still the established theory but it is much more complicated than before due to the availability of ancient DNA analysis.

I'll stick with Adam and Eve in the middle east.

Re: #3 - Carbon-14 dating, while considered the most reliable method of age dating organics, has its limit, which appear to be around 50,000 years, given the relatively short half-life, 5,700 years, give or take a few decades, of the Carbon-14 isotope. That means that after or about 5,700 years, half of the amount of C-14 in a given sample will spontaneously deteriorate. Within its limits, Carbon-14, an isotope whose rate of decay can be measured in a lab and extrapolated to the field, is generally considered the most accurate method of dating organic substances. Beyond 50,000 years, there are other radiocarbon isotopes that are used to provide informed estimates of age of organic substances but they all come with caveats. The 200,000 years cited in the article is definitely an estimate, well outside the limits of C-14 dating, and is perhaps somewhat informed (better than a WAG) but still an estimate. As a geologist of 50 years (approaching spontaneous fossilization myself) or so, I'm more comfortable in using the relative estimates of comparative strata via micro fossils found within similar formations. There are classes of microfossils, such as foraminifera, about which many specialized geologists spend entire careers cataloguing and classifying as to their relative ages and the strata associated with their occurrence. For example, the relative age of the Austin Chalk in Central Texas can be compared to similar chalk formations of the late Cretaceous age that occur world wide. No geologist worth his/her salt is going to stand their feet and claim that any given formation is "fill in the blank" years old but give informed estimates with ranges of dates, with margins of error in the thousands of years. It matters a lot in the search for exploitable deposits of oil and gas worldwide. For the more near term archeological relics, say around 10 to 20,000 years, measuring the rate of Carbon-14 decay and the relative proportions of other isotopes within a sample, yields the most accurate age determining information in use today. Perhaps in the future, better technology used by smarter people can yield better, more accurate results.