Denisovan artwork? d'Errico/Doyon

They might not look much compared to the work of Michelangelo or Vincent van Gogh. But a couple of abstract etchings discovered in China could be a sign that the Denisovans, our mysterious extinct cousins, were artists. The 100,000-year-old marks on two pieces of bone also bolster the idea that Denisovans, like Neanderthals, were capable of symbolic thought – once regarded as something only modern humans could do.

The bones were unearthed at Lingjing in Henan Province, China, a site where a population of archaic humans, thought to be Denisovans – though this needs to be confirmed …