Protein analysis identifies a jawbone dredged from Taiwan’s Penghu Channel as Denisovan

Science reports that fishermen dredged up the jawbone from the Penghu Channel before amateur fossil hunter Kun-Yu Tsai spotted it while shopping for antiques in Tainan in 2008. He bought it and later donated it to Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science. An analysis of ancient proteins in the fossil, published in 2025, identified it as belonging to a Denisovan, a close relative of Neanderthals.