The shape of the human face helps identify our distant ancestors, and they were Eurasians!

A paper published in Nature by Lacruz, R.S., Stringer, C.B., Kimbel, W.H. et al. in 2019 (The evolutionary history of the human face. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 726–736 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0865-) — which can be read for free here suggests that our ancestry derives from Eurasian hominins, not African ones.

The authors discuss the last common ancestor (LCA) of modern humans and place it in the Mid Pleistocene (MP). They wonder which of the known MP hominins is our ancestor. They use the human face as a standard to define our LCA. The paper, published in an orthodox and renown journal like Nature can't go against the estsablished Out of Africa (OOA) dogma, so it has to somehow acknowledge the African origin of modern humans, but does it in a grudging, reluctant way. The paper states that "...the LCA should predate the appearance of a modern face, which begs the question: what is the earliest evidence of a modern human face? In considering the origins of the human face, we should take into account that mounting genetic and morphological data support the notion that H. sapiens first appeared in Africa. But these same data also imply that, while fully fledged H. sapiens likely had an African beginning, the evolutionary origins of traits that are characteristic of the modern face, represented by the LCA, may be found elsewhere." And elsewhere can only mean outside of Africa, in Eurasia.

After suggesting that Homo heidelbergensis, also found in Africa, as Homo rhodesiensis could be our LCA, the authors raise some questions about this idea (they seem to be too robust), and state that:

"This issue is further complicated by the apparent presence of a more H. sapiens-like midfacial morphology in Chinese fossils from the MP, such as Zhoukoudian, Nanjing (Fig. 3d), Dali and Jinniushan. This morphology is especially apparent in the newly announced (but not yet published scientifically) cranium, said to be from Harbin, North East China. These examples could perhaps be the result of gene flow or an independent evolutionary trajectory convergent on that of H. sapiens, raising the issue of whether these differences are phylogenetically informative. However, an alternative and plausible scenario implicates the morphology of the early European hominin species, Homo antecessor...
... In this scenario, a more ancient and taxonomically distinct LCA for the H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis lineages is based on the ‘modern’ maxillary conformation of the ATD6-69 H. antecessor face from Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, dated at ~850 ka...
The evidence instead suggests that the large and non-H. sapiens-like faces of Bodo and Broken Hill 1 (Fig. 3b,c) represent taxonomic diversity in the African MP record, which could exclude the large fossils assigned to H. heidelbergensis and H. rhodesiensis as representative of an ancestral morph for H. sapiens. Given other shared and more H. sapiens-like facial morphologies, ranging from the late lower Pleistocene of Europe to the MP of China and Africa, it begins to look more parsimonious to interpret a H. antecessor-like facial morphology as primitive for the clade containing H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. This symplesiomorphic morphology was also present in at least some fossils assigned to Chinese H. erectus, in other archaic Chinese hominins and in the lineage of H. sapiens present in Africa from ~500 Ky, while it was apparently lost in the H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis and H. neanderthalensis lineages."

This suggestion is relevant, it somehow implies that non-African hominins, from China, and others from Eurasia, including Homo erectus, and also the Homo antecessor fossils from Spain are more human-like than fossils found in Africa older than 500,000 years ago. So, there is plenty of evidence of ancient human-like faces in Eurasia before it appeared in Africa! The authors, tacitly suggest that modern humans did not originate in Africa. They appeared in Eurasia and back-migrated there from Eurasia around 500 kya!

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Denisovan may have split from Homo erectus

A recent research article (not peer-reviewed) published in BioRxiv (Scalable ARG-free Detection of Denisovan-mediated Superarchaic Introgression Reveals Heterogeneous Patterns across Populations. Noel McAllister, Sebastian Zöllner, Xinjun Zhang, bioRxiv 2026.06.25.734355; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.25.734355), used simulations based on a specific computing program to explore the sites in our genomes where superarchaic introgression may be found. Introgression that reached us via Denisovans.

It looks into the genome of modern populations and finds that HLA/MHC loci have higher introgression scores than other sites. This, according to the authors, "...is consistent with previous evidence that immune-related loci retain archaic variants. At the same time, HLA/MHC is among the most polymorphic regions of the human genome and has been shaped by pathogen-mediated and balancing selection, both of which can preserve deeply divergent haplotypes and generate unusually deep local genealogies..." However, they caution that these high scores may not only be due to archaic introgression: " ...HLA/MHC is also one of the clearest examples of long-term balancing selection, which also preserves deeply diverged haplotypes without recent introgression... We therefore interpret the HLA/MHC signal cautiously. It should not be treated as definitive evidence for superarchaic ancestry by itself. Nonetheless, its repeated elevation across all three populations is notable and suggests that immune-related regions may be especially informative targets for future local haplotype, ARG-based, and functional analyses."

It makes sense that alleles linked to immunity, received from superarchaics, if they provide a benefit, will be preserved across generations.

The paper then discusses Denisovans and mentions an interesting fact, that Denisovans could have evolved from Homo erectus: "Our results also intersect with the recent paleoproteomic evidence suggesting that some Denisovan superarchaic ancestry may ultimately derive from populations related to H. erectus."

It also notes that population structure can be mistaken for introgression: "A further limitation is that deep population structure and introgression remain intrinsically difficult to separate. Structured ancestral populations can generate old coalescent times and divergent haplotypes, and some recent models have shown that deep structure may explain signals previously interpreted as archaic or ghost admixture."

It presents a scenario that I had not read about before: "Hominin evolution may have involved both long-lived structured populations and episodic admixture among deeply diverged groups." Which is very plausible, we can imagine, especially in Africa this scenario, with archaic populations and ancestral modern humans living in isolated, deeply structured populations admixing sporadically, and adding diversity to the Homo sapiens group.

The other branches of the human tree also followed that pattern, with Neanderthals in western Eurasia and Denisovans in the Eastern part of Asia. Mixing with modern humans as our ancestors met them.

Homo erectus has been shown to have admixed with Denisovans (see this post), but, this article suggests that Denisovans evolved from Homo erectus, which is a very reasonable assumption. I recently posted about Denisovans and Homo heidelbergensis being related (also Neanderthals), it is possible that the common ancestor for these groups evolved from erectus (via Homo antecessor) in Eurasia.

Evidence seems to be building a stronger case for an Eurasian origin for hominins.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Homo heidelbergensis from Africa and Denisovans are linked

A research paper published in 2025 (Candidate Denisovan fossils identified through gene regulatory phenotyping, by Nadav Mishol, Gadi Herzlinger, Yoel Rak, Uzy Smilanksy, Liran Carmel, David Gokhman, bioRxiv 2024.04.18.590145; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.18.590145 and in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi: 10.1073/pnas.2513968122) reported the study of the shape of different skulls from the Middle Pleistocene, spanning Eurasian and African specimens, including Neanderthal, Homo erectus and modern humans to try to identify the traits that indicate the Denisovan morphology. The study found something quite interesting besides the similarity between Denisovans and some East Asian fossils, below I cite their conclusions and highlight the relevant part:

"these analyses revealed that the East Asian specimens of Harbin and Dali show an exceptionally high concordance with the Denisovan profile, surpassing all other examined Middle Pleistocene hominin specimens, including Neanderthals. Specifically, 15 out of 18 of Dali’s features and 16 out of 18 of Harbin’s matched Denisovan predictions. These findings are robust to overall skull size and to correlations between phenotypes. We also found that Kabwe 1 shows a strong affinity to the Denisovan–Neanderthal clade and might be placed near its root"

Kabwe the African fossil

Kabwe 1 was unearthed in 1921 in Kabwe, in what is now Zambia. It is a fossil skull also known as the Rhodesia man or Broken Hill, and has been classified as a member of the Homo heidelbergensis group. It is rather primitive, with heavy brow ridges, and a flat forehead, its shape resembles that of Homo erectus yet it is relatively recent, dated to around 324,000 - 274,000 years old (source) which makes it contemporaneous with the first members of our species, Homo sapiens who are said to have appeared in North Africa 300,000 years ago.

Besides the oddity of archaic and moderns co-existing in Africa 300 kya. Kabwe 1 is extremely close to Denisovans! Which is an unusual finding because Denisovans are not known to have migrated into Africa, they are better known as East or Southeast, or Central Asian populations that admixed over there with modern humans as these entered that region around 50 ky ago.

Let's see what the paper has to say about this similarity:

"Several test subjects, most notably Kabwe 1, exhibit unexpectedly high concordance with the Denisovan profile, despite being unlikely to be Denisovans. Although discovered in Africa, Kabwe 1 not only aligns well with the Denisovan profile (Fig. 4) but also clusters closely in the PCA with Dali, a potential Denisovan (Fig. 6 and SI Appendix, Fig. S3). Although our current knowledge of Denisovan habitat is lacking, it is unlikely that they reached Southern Africa. Hence, Kabwe 1 is unlikely to be directly positioned on the Denisovan lineage. A more plausible explanation is that the resemblance of some of these specimens to Denisovans reflects a proximal phylogenetic affinity with the Neanderthal–Denisovan clade, perhaps close to its root."

So, the authors assume that there has been no migration of Denisovans into Africa, and based on this assumption they suggest that the African fossil is similar to Denisovans because it was a close relative to the Denisovan-Neanderthal group that left Africa, and split into Neanderthals and Denisovans. A conclusion repeated again in the closing part of the paper, as you can read below:

"The resemblance of several specimens attributed to H. heidelbergensis to the Denisovan profile, and specifically the African specimen Kabwe 1, is particularly intriguing. The similarity between Kabwe 1 and other high-scoring specimens is evident in all PCAs (Figure 4 and Supplementary Figure 10), suggesting that this resemblance is not limited to Denisovan-like phenotypes. Despite our limited knowledge of the true range of Denisovans, it is unlikely that they reached Southern Africa, hence Kabwe 1 is unlikely to be directly positioned on the Denisovan lineage. A more plausible explanation is that the resemblance of some of these specimens to Denisovans reflects a proximal phylogenetic affinity with Denisovans. For example, H. heidelbergensis specimens were positioned either close to the split between modern and archaic humans or close to the split between Neanderthals and Denisovans [29]. If H. heidelbergensis is indeed phylogenetically closer to the Neanderthal-Denisovan split than Neanderthals are, it is expected to exhibit an even greater similarity to the Denisovan profile than Neanderthals do. Another alternative explanation is that Denisovans might have retained several ancestral phenotypes observed in H. heidelbergensis [59], or that these phenotypes were affected by gene flow into Denisovans, originating from contemporaneous H. heidelbergensis [17]."

The authors don't explain how the African fossil can be closer to the Denisovans than the Neanderthals. It is assumed that neither group entered Africa. That the common ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals left Africa, splitting from the group that would lead to us, modern humans. Then, in Eurasia, the ancestral group of Denisovans and Neanderthals split into two species, one heading East, the other colonizing the West of Eurasia. So, how could a primitive hominin in Zambia be closer to a group that split in the Levant?

The second explanation requires explaining why the Denisovans ended up with the primitive ancestral form found in Kabwe but not the Neanderthals. The final explanation of gene flow into Denisovans via contemporaneous Homo heidelbergensis would require them being alive and kicking in Western Eurasia around 600 ky ago!

The nice part of this paper is that it is thought provoking: Denisovans and Homo heidelbergensis are linked. Notice that Heidelbergensis got its name from a site in Heidelberg, Germany where it was found in 1908 (source). It is found in Europe and Africa. Of course, it is claimed to have evolved in Africa. But, could these people have evolved in Eurasia, leading to the ancestor of modern humans, Denisovans and Neanderthals, adding more genes to the Denisovans who carried them east, and finally, a group of heidelbergensis moved into Africa resulting in the Zambia fossils?

The current bias against an Into Africa flow makes this hypothesis unlikely to be accepted. But it seems the most logical one. Furthermore, flow of the heidelbergensis into Atapuerca people and then from Spain into North Africa seems a plausible explanation for the evolution of Modern Humans separately from the Neanderthal-Denisovan group.

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©