Scientists have for the first time discovered a fossil of an extraordinary hybrid human.
Analysis of the 90,000 year-old bone fragment found it came from a female who had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.
The 13-year-old old, nicknamed "Denny" by scientists, is an example of interbreeding between now-extinct human groups, scientists say.
Denisovans were a group of humans first identified from DNA analysis of a finger bone discovered in the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Russia a decade ago.
Neanderthals, also now extinct, also lived in the cave.
Pontus Skoglund, population geneticist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: "To find a first-generation person of mixed ancestry from these groups is absolutely extraordinary.
"It's really great science coupled with a little bit of luck."
Professor Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London, who was not involved in the research, told the Independent it suggested our ancestors did not show any form of prejudice when selecting partners.
“Clearly they weren’t racist – so it’s a lesson from our distant relatives," he said.
The complete picture of Denny's ancestry had been incomplete for a number of years - only her mother's side was known after researchers discovered mitochondrial DNA in her remains came from a Neanderthal.
The most recent study set out to compare DNA variation in Denny with that of three other hominins - a Neanderthal, a Denisovan and a modern-day human (Homo Sapien) from Africa.
Paleogeneticists Dr Viviane Slon and Professor Svante Paabo, at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, carried out genome analysis on a bone taken from the cave.
A 40 per cent match was found with the Denisovan, as well as a 40 per cent match for the Neanderthal, while bone density gave away the teenager's age.
Scientists have been aware of breeding between different human groups, including between Denisovans and Homo Sapiens, thanks to variation among humans.
But this is the first time a first-generation offspring from the pairing has been discovered.
Scientists now think such a mix could be more common than initially thought.
"We knew from previous studies that Neandertals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together but I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups," said Dr Slon.
The findings were published in Nature.
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