When life got tough, the Denisovans got tougher. The enigmatic ancient humans hunted birds, rodents, even hyenas, helping them to thrive high on the Tibetan plateau for well over 100,000 years.

Those conclusions emerge from a study of thousands of mostly tiny animal bones that provide an insight into life at Baishiya Karst Cave in China1 — only the second archaeological site known to host Denisovans, after the Siberian cave that gave the group its name. Denisovans are a sister group to Neanderthals, and might have once lived across Asia.

Many of the cave remains could be identified only by their protein signatures. This included a rib bone that represents a new Denisovan individual, one of just a handful known.

“Denisovans are dealing with the full suite of animals they’re surrounded with in order to survive in this quite harsh landscape,” says Frido Welker, an archaeological scientist at the University of Copenhagen who co-led the study, published in Nature on 3 July. “It’s at high altitude. It’s cold. It’s not a nice place to be as a hominin.”