In 2008 - 2010, human-like teeth and bones were recovered from a cave in a place called Denisova in Russia. (Siberia, actually.) They appear to be from a species of hominins different from the Neanderthals, who lived contemporary with the Neanderthals, about 100,000 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers and appear to be another abortive side branch of the human family tree that sadly is extinct today. The size of their teeth suggests that they had larger jaws than modern humans and may have physically resembled Neanderthals. Evidence is that they lived in, or at least seasonally visited Siberia for a long period, tens of thousands of years.
The new DNA evidence (both mitochondrial and nuclear) reveals that today's Melanesians (black-skinned, frizzy-haired Negroid-appearing people who live in the southwest Pacific area) share about 5% of the Denisovians' genes, indicating that the Denisovians interbred with the early anatomically-modern humans spreading out of Africa through their range.
http://phys.org/news/2015-11-dna-analysi...clues.html
The new DNA evidence (both mitochondrial and nuclear) reveals that today's Melanesians (black-skinned, frizzy-haired Negroid-appearing people who live in the southwest Pacific area) share about 5% of the Denisovians' genes, indicating that the Denisovians interbred with the early anatomically-modern humans spreading out of Africa through their range.
http://phys.org/news/2015-11-dna-analysi...clues.html