Breaking news about an astonishing find of a child is hitting international news. The paper presents the genome of ‘Denisova 11’, who is represented by a small bone fragment from Denisova Cave in Russia. The authors found that the individual was a girl of at least 13 years of age and has a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.

Interestingly, the authors argue that this type of mixed-breeding between Late Pleistocene hominin groups must have been common, given this finding of a Neanderthal–Denisovan offspring among a very small number of archaic specimens genetically analysed to date.

Drawing of a Neandertal mother and a Denisovan father with their child, a girl, at Denisova Cave in Russia (Credit: Petra Korlević)

The bone fragment ‘Denisova 11′ from several angles  (photo taken by Tom Higham)

I was interested in the age-at-death estimation carried out from the analyses of cortical bone thickness. Although presented as fact that this individual was a “child” in the news with quotes from the main authors, it rightly states in the paper’s supplementary data that there are various problems with estimating the age-at-death of this specimen. They argue that the bone fragment may be from a femur, tibia or humerus because of its thickness of 8.4mms. However, archaic hominins were likely more robust, so it could be that this may have been from a smaller bone from a robust adult. So really they can’t actually say that it is a child, but that she was at least 13 years old. However, it goes without saying that regardless of this ‘child’s’ age, this is a very important finding.