US EditionA Million-Year-Old Skull Is Rewriting the Human Family Tree
A 1-million-year-old skull fossil identified as Homo longi suggests Homo sapiens emerged 400,000 years earlier, reshaping the timeline of human evolution, researchers said.
- On Friday, a Science paper led by Xijun Ni reanalyzed the Yunxian 2 skull from Hubei, dating it to more than 1 million years and suggesting it may rewrite the human family tree.
- Because the cranium was crushed, researchers used digital scanning and computer modelling as Ni and Xiaobo Feng reexamined the distorted Yunxian 2 skull, clarifying its classification.
- The reconstructed skull shows a mosaic of traits matching Dragon Man and Denisovans, with over 1,100 milliliters brain capacity, supporting the idea of an earlier human split, said Prof Chris Stringer.
- Authors argue the new tree moves the origin of Homo sapiens far back, pushing key group origins by roughly 400,000 years and placing Homo longi at 1.32 million years while Neanderthals diverged at 1.38 million.
- Given recent contested claims from China, observers expect scrutiny as some scientists urge checking dates against African million-year-old fossils and Svante Pääbo says only DNA or proteins will resolve relations.
21 Articles
21 Articles
Observador
Cranium excavated, discovered in China in 1990 and called Yunxian 2, was previously considered to belong to Homo erectus.
Ancient Skull Found in China Pushes Back Human Evolution by 400,000 Years
Yunxian 2 skull in China’s Hubei Provincial Museum. Credit: Gary Todd / Wikimedia Commons / CC0 An ancient skull found in China has shifted the story of human evolution, suggesting our family tree branched much earlier than scientists thought. A study led by Xiaobo Feng of the School of History and Culture at Shanxi University reports that the million-year-old fossil from Yunxian, Hubei province, belongs to a lineage that split from modern human…
In 1990, archaeologists in Hubei Province, China, unearthed a human skull that had become so deformed during the fossilization process that its true value was unknown. A new analysis suggests that the skull may belong to a "sister lineage" of our species.
A million-year-old skull found in China has been studied with modern equipment, and the conclusions from the study may rewrite the history of human evolution.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 50% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
