Researchers have finally discovered whose skull was recently found in China.
Scientists believe the skull of an unknown human ancestor found in China could be the fruit of love between two different species, reports the daily email.
It is believed that the 900,000-year-old skull belonged to a hybrid of Homo sapiens and Homo longi, also known as the ‘Dragon Man’. The skull, dubbed “Yunxian Man,” has baffled scientists because of 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”.
So scientists believe that the ‘Yunxian Man’ found refers to our ‘long-lost sister lineage’.
“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.
In the past fifty years, two more similar skulls have been found in China, the origins of which were unclear.
Comparing bones from different species may not seem like a difficult task, according to Boston University archaeologist Anna Goldfield. But the fact is that science has yet to determine how many hominid species there have been in our recent archaeological history.
There are generally recognized two archaic types of humans: the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, who lived in separate groups on Earth about 30,000 years ago.
The skull of the “Yunxian Man” was difficult to attribute to either 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 500,000 years ago.
Although the “Yunxian Man” had an elongated skull like the Denisovans, he also had distinct bulging eyes, which the Denisovans did not have.
But researchers later suggested that the hybrid Denisovan might have adopted characteristics of the ‘Dragon Man’, as both 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.
