Researchers have finally figured out whose skull was recently found in China.
Scientists believe that the skull of an unknown human ancestor found in China may be the fruit of love between two different species, reports the Daily Mail.
The 900,000-year-old skull is believed to have belonged to a hybrid of Homo sapiens and Homo longi, also known as the “Dragon Man.” The skull, called “Yunxian Man”, has baffled scientists due to its strange shape and other features.
A new study was able to recreate a complete 3D model of the skull. She revealed that the hybrid had the facial bones of a human, but a denser skull, bulging eyes, and a thicker brow bone, like the “Dragon Man”.
Thus, scientists believe that the found “Yunxian Man” refers to our “long-lost sister line.”
“It is reasonable to assume that the hybrid is morphologically and chronologically close to the last common ancestor of the lineage of Homo sapiens and Homo longi,” the study authors write.
Over the past 50 years, two more similar skulls have been found in China, the origin of which was unclear.
According to Boston University archaeologist Anna Goldfield, comparing bones from different species might not seem like a difficult task. But the fact is that science has yet to determine how many human-like species there were in our recent archaeological history.
There are generally recognized two archaic species of humans – Neanderthals and Denisovans, who lived on Earth in separate groups approximately 30 thousand years ago.
The skull of the “Yunxian Man” was difficult to attribute to one of these species. Based on its physical characteristics and location, the researchers suggested that it could be a member of the Denisovan family, which appeared in Asia about 500 thousand years ago.
Although “Yunxian Man” had an elongated skull like Denisovans, it also had distinct bulging eyes, which Denisovans did not have.
But later, researchers suggested that the hybrid could have received Denisovan traits from the “Dragon Man,” since both of these groups lived on Earth at about the same time.
After analyzing the new skull, the researchers concluded that “Yunxian Man” is a descendant of “Dragon Man” and Homo sapiens.