These teeth were enormous, beyond the range of nearly all teeth previously reported in the genus Homo. Large molars are thought to be biological adaptations to a diet that includes lots of tough uncooked plants. Prior to the Denisovans, the humans closest to us who were known to have had teeth of this size were the primarily plant-eating australopithecenes, like the famous “Lucy,” whose skeleton, dating to more than three million years ago, was found in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia.
