A vast stretch of islands across the South Pacific holds one of the oldest human stories on Earth. For tens of thousands of ...

Genes inherited from the now-extinct Denisovans are actively playing a role in the immune system of some people from Oceania.

A skull pulled from a construction site in Harbin, northeastern China, in 1933 spent decades hidden in a well, then years ...

Six teeth from Homo erectus individuals who lived roughly 400,000 years ago in China have yielded enamel proteins carrying an ...

Malaria is one of the world's most widespread and deadliest parasitic diseases. But some people may have natural protection thanks to DNA inherited from an extinct group of archaic humans known as the ...

People living in the highlands and lowlands of Papua New Guinea have different frequencies of several Denisovan genetic variants, which may help them adapt to their local environmental conditions. The ...

Thousands of years ago, ancient humans undertook a treacherous journey, crossing hundreds of miles of ice over the Bering Strait to the unknown world of the Americas. Now, a new study led by the ...

The Denisovans, together with the Neanderthals, are the closest extinct relatives of modern humans. It wasn't until 2010 that scientists announced that the Denisovans existed, so much about them ...

On the seabed off the coast of Taiwan, a fisherman's dredge pulled up more than just marine life. Among the animal remains was something unexpected—a thick, heavy jawbone. For years, the fossil ...