Unusual freezer-like conditions inside Denisova Cave, in the Altai region of Siberia, opened up a ‘Wild East’ frontier, as DNA there was in exceptional condition. A sample extracted from D5, a toe bone, provided the first ‘high-coverage’ Neanderthal nuclear genome: our introduction to the recipe for another kind of human. Dubbed ‘the Altai Neanderthal’, the toe had belonged to a woman who died around 90 ka. She came from a truly venerable lineage that had separated from others some 40,000 or 50,000 years before.
