What Denisova 11 establishes, unambiguously, is that Neanderthal-Denisovan interbreeding was possible and occurred. This is a foundational finding that removes any hypothesis of absolute reproductive isolation between the two groups. Beyond that, the frequency, geographic distribution, and demographic significance of such encounters remains to be established through future evidence.
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## The Names We Give the Past
The names used for the individuals and groups in this story are worth brief reflection, because naming is never neutral, and the names used in paleogenomics carry assumptions and choices that are worth making explicit.
“Neanderthal” comes from the German valley where the first recognized Neanderthal remains were found in 1856—a valley itself named after Joachim Neander, a seventeenth-century German hymn writer. The name has nothing to do with the people it now designates, who had no connection to Germany in the seventeenth century and who would not have known the valley or the man. It is the name that stuck because it was the name of the place where the type specimen was found—the standard procedure for naming species in natural history.
“Denisovan” comes from Denisova Cave, which comes from Denis, an eighteenth-century Russian hermit. Again, the name has no connection to the people it designates. The Denisovans did not name themselves after a Christian hermit who would not be born for tens of thousands of years after their extinction.
“Denny” is a nickname given to Denisova 11 by researchers at the University of Oxford, adapted from the cave’s name. It was not her name. It is a convenience for researchers and science communicators, a humanizing shorthand that makes a catalogue number (DC1227) into something more relatable in conversation and in press releases. She did not know she would be called Denny. She did not know she would be named at all by anyone other than the people she lived among.