This model is supported by analysis of ancient genomes from Southeast Asia and Oceania, which show patterns of Denisovan ancestry that are consistent with distinct admixture events. It is also supported by the differences in the specific Denisovan genomic regions that are most represented in East Asian versus Oceanic populations: if the admixture events were distinct, the particular segments of Denisovan DNA that became embedded in each modern human population would differ, and the data appear consistent with this expectation.
Denisova 11, living 90,000 years ago, predates any of these modern human-Denisovan encounters. The Denisovans who were encountered by the ancestors of modern Papuans or Australians were probably not the same population as the Denisovans at Denisova Cave. They were the same species, separated by thousands of kilometers and tens of thousands of years. The genetic legacy of those later Denisovans persists in living people; the genetic legacy of the Denisovans at Denisova Cave, as far as we know, does not—though establishing this definitively would require sequencing many more Denisovan genomes and comparing them carefully to living population data.
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## The Role of ZooMS in Future Discoveries
The methodological approach that identified Denisova 11—systematic ZooMS screening of unidentified bone fragments from Paleolithic sites—has become a standard tool in paleontology and archaeological science since the initial work at Denisova Cave. Its potential for generating new discoveries is significant.
Most large Paleolithic sites hold collections of unidentified bone fragments that have never been subjected to species identification at the molecular level. These collections represent the accumulated residue of decades of excavation and typically contain thousands of fragments per site. Before ZooMS, there was no cost-effective way to screen such collections for hominin material; researchers could visually examine fragments for anatomical characteristics, but small or featureless pieces would remain unidentifiable.