Molecular analysis has determined that a jawbone recovered off Taiwan's coast came from a Denisovan, showing that this enigmatic lineage of archaic humans once inhabited a vast expanse in eastern Eurasia in environments ranging from cold and arid to warm and humid.

The fossil belongs to a group of early human ancestors called Denisovans, an extinct group that interacted with Neanderthals and our own species, Homo sapiens.

A fossil jawbone found by fishers in the Taiwan Strait has extended the known range of ancient Denisovan people thousands of kilometres to the east