Novel collagen fingerprinting identifies a Neanderthal bone among 2,000 fragments

Scientists have used a new molecular fingerprinting technique to identify one Neanderthal bone from around 2,000 bone fragments. All the tiny pieces of bone were recovered from a key archaeological site, Denisova Cave in Russia, with the remaining fragments found to be from animal species like mammoths, woolly rhino, wolf and reindeer. It is the first time that researchers have identified traces of an extinct human from an archaeological site using a technique called ‘Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry’ or ZooMS.
Paleontology News — ScienceDaily