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'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative

Date:
2021年6月25日
Source:
Cell Press
Summary:
A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or 'Dragon Man.' Their findings suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives -- and may reshape our understanding of human evolution.
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A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of knownHomoskulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species namedHomo longior "Dragon Man." Their findings, appearing in three papers publishing June 25 in the journalThe Innovation, suggest that theHomo longilineage may be our closest relatives -- and has the potential to reshape our understanding of human evolution.

"The Harbin fossil is one of the most complete human cranial fossils in the world," says author Qiang Ji, a professor of paleontology of Hebei GEO University. "This fossil preserved many morphological details that are critical for understanding the evolution of theHomogenus and the origin ofHomo sapiens."

The cranium was reportedly discovered in the 1930s in Harbin City of the Heilongjiang province of China. The massive skull could hold a brain comparable in size to modern humans' but had larger, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth. "While it shows typical archaic human features, the Harbin cranium presents a mosaic combination of primitive and derived characters setting itself apart from all the other previously-namedHomospecies," says Ji, leading to its new species designation ofHomo longi.

Scientists believe the cranium came from a male individual, approximately 50 years old, living in a forested, floodplain environment as part of a small community. "LikeHomo sapiens, they hunted mammals and birds, and gathered fruits and vegetables, and perhaps even caught fish," remarks author Xijun Ni, a professor of primatology and paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei GEO University. Given that the Harbin individual was likely very large in size as well as the location where the skull was found, researchers suggestH. longimay have been adapted for harsh environments, allowing them to disperse throughout Asia.

Using a series of geochemical analyses, Ji, Ni, and their team dated the Harbin fossil to at least 146,000 years, placing it in the Middle Pleistocene, a dynamic era of human species migration. They hypothesize thatH. longiandH. sapiens能遇到彼此during this era.

"We see multiple evolutionary lineages ofHomospecies and populations co-existing in Asia, Africa, and Europe during that time. So, ifHomo sapiensindeed got to East Asia that early, they could have a chance to interact withH. longi, and since we don't know when the Harbin group disappeared, there could have been later encounters as well," says author Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Nature History Museum in London.

Looking farther back in time, the researchers also find thatHomo longiis one of our closest hominin relatives, even more closely related to us than Neanderthals. "It is widely believed that the Neanderthal belongs to an extinct lineage that is the closest relative of our own species. However, our discovery suggests that the new lineage we identified that includesHomo longiis the actual sister group ofH. sapiens," says Ni.

Their reconstruction of the human tree of life also suggests that the common ancestor we share with Neanderthals existed even further back in time. "The divergence time betweenH. sapiensand the Neanderthals may be even deeper in evolutionary history than generally believed, over one million years," says Ni. If true, we likely diverged from Neanderthals roughly 400,000 years earlier than scientists had thought.

The researchers say that findings gathered from the Harbin cranium have the potential to rewrite major elements of human evolution. Their analysis into the life history ofHomo longisuggest they were strong, robust humans whose potential interactions withHomo sapiensmay have shaped our history in turn. "Altogether, the Harbin cranium provides more evidence for us to understandHomodiversity and evolutionary relationships among these diverseHomospecies and populations," says Ni. "We found our long-lost sister lineage."

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Materials provided byCell Press.注:内容可能edited for style and length.


Journal References:

  1. Shao et al.Geochemical provenancing and direct dating of the Harbin archaic human cranium.The Innovation, 2021 DOI:10.1016 / j.xinn.2021.100131
  2. Ji et al.Late Middle Pleistocene Harbin cranium represents a new Homo species.The Innovation, 2021 DOI:10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100132
  3. Ni et al.Massive cranium from Harbin in northeastern China establishes a new Middle Pleistocene human lineage.The Innovation, 2021 DOI:10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100130

Cite This Page:

Cell Press. "'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 June 2021. /releases/2021/06/210625120419.htm>.
Cell Press. (2021, June 25). 'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative.ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 13, 2023 from www.koonmotors.com/releases/2021/06/210625120419.htm
Cell Press. "'Dragon man' fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative." ScienceDaily. www.koonmotors.com/releases/2021/06/210625120419.htm (accessed August 13, 2023).

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