Scientists have reconstructed the entire genetic makeup of a girl who lived and died in a Siberian cave more than 50,000 years ago. The young woman belonged to an ancient and long extinct group of humans called Denisovans, their existence known only from meagre fossil remains uncovered at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008. These ancient relatives are thought to have occupied much of Asia tens of thousands of years ago. Previous tests on the remains found they were more closely related to Neanderthals than modern humans.

Even 50,000 years ago Siberia is where people went to die.