Will Dragon Man Fossil Replace Neanderthals as Humans Closest Relative

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A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin skull sits in the Geoscience Museum at Hebei GEO University. The largest of known Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or "Dragon Man." Their findings, appearing in three papers publishing June 25 in the journal The Innovation, suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives - and has the potential to reshape our understanding of human evolution.

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

The skull 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 named Homo species," says Ji, leading to its new species designation of Homo longi.

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Scientists believe the skull came from a male individual, approximately 50 years old, living in a forested, floodplain environment as part of a small community.

"Like Homo 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 large and the location where the skull was found, researchers suggest H. longi may 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 that H. longi and H. Sapiens could have encountered each other during this era.

"We see multiple evolutionary lineages of Homo species and populations co-existing in Asia, Africa, and Europe during that time. So, if Homo sapiens indeed got to East Asia that early, they could have a chance to interact with H. 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 that Homo longi is 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 species. However, our discovery suggests that the new lineage we identified that includes Homo longi is the actual sister group of H. Sapiens," says Ni.

Their reconstruction of the human tree of life also submits that the common ancestor we share with Neanderthals existed even further back in time.

"The divergence time between H. Sapiens and 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 of Homo longi propose they were strong, robust humans whose potential interactions with Homo sapiens may have shaped our history in turn.

"Altogether, the Harbin cranium provides more evidence for us to understand Homo diversity and evolutionary relationships among these diverse Homo species and populations," says Ni. "We found our long-lost sister lineage."

References, Funding and Resources

Funding information for this research is available in the respective papers.

• The Innovation, Shao et al.: "Geochemical provenancing and direct dating of the Harbin archaic human cranium" cell.com/the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(21)00056-4 DOI: 10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100131
• The Innovation, Ji et al.: "Late Middle Pleistocene Harbin cranium represents a new Homo species" cell.com/the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(21)00057-6 DOI: 10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100132
• The Innovation, Ni et al.: "Massive cranium from Harbin in northeastern China establishes a new Middle Pleistocene human lineage" cell.com/the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(21)00055-2 DOI: 10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100130
• The Innovation (@The_InnovationJ), published by Cell Press in partnership with members of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association (YIPA), a part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a new broad-scope, open access journal publishing basic and applied research that impacts and benefits society.

Resources That Provide Relevant Information

• Clues to Ghost Species of Ancient Human Discovered
• Foundations of Human Health: A Genetic Checkup
• Skull Study on Human and Neandertal Interbreeding
• Research Confirms Humans Are Part Neanderthal
• How Neanderthals Influenced Human Genetics at the Crossroads of Asia and Europe

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This peer reviewed article relating to our Anthropology and Disability section was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World due to its likely interest to our disability community readers. Though the content may have been edited for style, clarity, or length, the article "Will Dragon Man Fossil Replace Neanderthals as Humans Closest Relative" was originally written by Cell Press, and published by Disabled-World.com on 2021/07/05 (Updated: 2022/08/23). Should you require further information or clarification, Cell Press can be contacted at cell.com. Disabled World makes no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

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