The new mitochondrial DNA from the Denisova finger bone featured nearly four hundred differences from the mitochondrial DNA of both present-day humans and Neanderthals. Based on the rate at which mutations accumulate, mitochondrial DNA sequences from present-day humans and Neanderthals are estimated to have separated from each other 470,000 to 360,000 years ago.3 The number of mutational differences found in the mitochondrial DNA from the Denisova finger bone suggested a separation time of roughly eight hundred thousand to one million years ago.
