Denisova 3 was discovered in 2008 by Russian researchers led by Michael Shunkov in layer 11.2 of the East Chamber of Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains. It was a distal manual phalanx of a female juvenile hominin’s fifth digit dated to 51.6–76.2 ka. Layer 11 contained microblades and polished stone ornaments typical of the Upper Palaeolithic industry, as well as stone tools more typical of the earlier Middle Palaeolithic, such as side-scrapers and Levallois blanks [1][2][3][4][5][6]. 

Interestingly, Denisova 3’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) did not match that of Neanderthals or modern humans. Instead, its high-coverage nuclear genome revealed that its ancestors diverged from a common ancestor with the Neanderthals between 440 and 390 thousand years ago, making it the first evidence of an unknown group of archaic humans named the “Denisovans” [1][2][7].