Scientists Unearth 1M-Year-Old Skull That May Prove Three Different Species Shared Earth for Over 800,000 Years

Scientists Unearth 1M-Year-Old Skull That May Prove Three Different Species Shared Earth for Over 800,000 Years

In the river terraces of central China’s Hubei Province, a fossilized skull once dismissed as too crushed for meaningful analysis is now reigniting one of paleoanthropology’s most contentious debates. Labeled Yunxian 2, the specimen sat for over three decades in academic obscurity—damaged, incomplete, and presumed to belong to Homo erectus, a long-extinct human ancestor. Now, high-resolution scans and 3D reconstruction techniques have brought th…