JOIN US The cavemen, called Denisovans, was identified from DNA taken from a tooth and finger bone found in a cave in Siberia.
Scientists believe that the pre-historic humans roamed the Earth during the last Ice Age when modern humans were developing sophisticated stone tools, jewellery and art.
The finding means there were at least three distinct members of the human family tree alive at the time — modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Provisional tests on the bones, believed to be of a young girl nicknamed the X-Woman, suggested that she belonged to an entirely new species.
Now, a fully DNA analysis has confirmed her place on the increasingly muddled human family tree. The little finger belonged to a girl aged around five to seven and was found in the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia in 2008 alongside ornaments and jewellery. The tooth resembles much older human ancestors — such as Homo erectus — which died out one million years ago.