Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - A New Denisovan Jaw Bone

Refuting Creationism

A New Denisovan Jaw Bone
From The Coast Of Taiwan

A fishing vessel dredged this fossil jawbone, now confirmed as Denisovan, from the Taiwan Strait.

Yousuke Kaifu

AI-generated impression of a Denisovan male.

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Fossil jawbone reveals mysterious Denisovans lived in ancient Taiwan | Science | AAAS

The Denisovans—an enigmatic group of archaic humans known mostly through ancient DNA—just became a little less mysterious. In a groundbreaking discovery announced this month, researchers have confirmed that a robust fossilised jawbone recovered from the seabed near Taiwan belongs to a Denisovan.

While no recoverable DNA remained, scientists used protein analysis—specifically paleoproteomics—to identify the jaw as Denisovan, marking the most southerly and eastern confirmed presence of these ancient humans to date.

This discovery not only expands the known geographic range of Denisovans dramatically but also sheds light on their adaptability, dietary ecology, and evolutionary identity. It may even help pave the way for giving them an official scientific name.

A Jaw from the Deep

The fossil in question, known as Penghu 1, was dredged up by fishermen off the coast of Taiwan in 2008 and sold in an antique market to amateur palaeontologist, Kun-Yu Tsai, who recognised it as a significant find and donated it to Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science.

Although it had been studied for several years, its taxonomic identity remained uncertain until now. Recent advances in paleoproteomics — analyzing ancient proteins preserved in tooth enamel — enabled researchers to extract enough biochemical signatures to match the jaw with known Denisovan specimens from Siberia and the Tibetan Plateau.

The proteins confirmed what morphology had long hinted at: this was a Denisovan. The finding aligns closely with another major discovery — the Xiahe mandible from Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau — which had also been attributed to Denisovans based on protein analysis.

Expanding the Denisovan Range

Until recently, confirmed Denisovan remains were limited to a handful of sites:

Denisova Cave in Siberia, where their DNA was first sequenced;
The Xiahe mandible from Tibet;
A likely molar from Laos, awaiting confirmation.

With Penghu 1, Denisovans can now be definitively placed over 4,000 kilometres from their northern Siberian stronghold, deep into subtropical East Asia. This implies a far broader ecological tolerance than previously assumed. Denisovans appear to have thrived in environments ranging from high-altitude plateaus to coastal lowlands, suggesting significant behavioural and cultural adaptability.

A notable feature of the Penghu 1 find is the robust molars with thick enamel.

What Their Teeth Reveal

Penghu 1 is remarkable not just for where it was found, but for what it reveals about Denisovan biology—particularly their diet. The jaw is powerfully built, with exceptionally large molars. These traits point toward a diet that included:

Tough, fibrous plants like roots and tubers;
Hard materials such as seeds or nuts;
Possibly raw or sinewy meat that required heavy chewing;
Gritty or unprocessed foods that wore down teeth over time.

Thick enamel and broad chewing surfaces suggest a high-masticatory-load diet, likely omnivorous but tilted toward mechanically challenging foods. This morphology matches that of other Denisovan remains and supports the view of Denisovans as adaptable foragers capable of exploiting a wide range of resources.

Are We Finally Ready to Name Them?

Despite more than a decade of discoveries, Denisovans still lack a formal scientific name. Under the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a species must be named based on a holotype specimen that is clearly described and morphologically distinct. The initial Denisovan fossils — two molars and a finger bone from Denisova Cave — were too fragmentary for such a designation.

However, with the addition of Penghu 1 and Xiahe, researchers now have morphologically diagnostic material from two geographically distant sites. Both jawbones exhibit consistent Denisovan traits and have been confirmed biochemically.

While names such as Homo denisova or Homo altaiensis have been floated informally, no consensus or formal publication has yet established a name. Nonetheless, the case for naming is now stronger than ever. If a type specimen is agreed upon — possibly Xiahe or Penghu 1 — we may finally see Denisovans granted their rightful place in our evolutionary taxonomy.

A More Human Denisovan
This discovery moves Denisovans from the genomic shadows into the fossil light. Each new find helps us understand them not just as a DNA sequence, but as real, living humans — tool-users, foragers, climbers of high-altitude mountains, coastal dwellers, and contributors to our own genetic makeup.

Their story, once confined to a Siberian cave, now stretches across continents and climates. And with it, so does our understanding of the complexity and diversity of the human family.

It almost goes without saying that this find and what we now know of the Denisovans and their interbreeding with both modern humans and Neanderthals, is completely inconsistent with the Bible narrative that has all humans descending from a single couple created without ancestors just a few thousand years ago.

Not only was there never a single founder couple, there was not even a single founder species, with no place for an ancestral couple to commit some assumed original sin to be inherited by us all.

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