A 146,000-year-old skull recovered near Harbin, China, by scientists decades ago has now been found to belong to the Denisovans, an extinct relation to modern humans who lived in Siberia and East Asia.

Denisovans were first discovered as another relation to humans in 2010, and in June this year, the ancient skull was found to carry Denisovan DNA.

The finding means that scientists can begin to understand what Denisovans looked like, as until now, only their genome had been identified.

"Until now we knew more about the Denisovan genome than we did about actual Denisovans," Bernard Wood, a professor of human origins at George Washington University, who was not part of the study, told Newsweek.

"That means we can look at other crania that are not obviously modern human or Neanderthal, a

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