:strip_icc()/s03.video.glbimg.com/x720/11836150.jpg "Chinese Scientists Unveil 300,000-Year-Old Hominid Skull Unlike Any Other Ever Found | Sciences")
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), along with researchers from other academic institutions, have made a discovery that is the first of its kind that, if confirmed, could reshape our understanding of human origin.
The study, published in the scientific journal “Journal of Human Evolution”, revealed evidence of a hitherto unknown human lineage, different from the branches that gave rise to Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans (homo sapiens).
The find is about a group of bones – a skull and jaw – dated to 300,000 years agounlike any previously known human fossil.
Found in the Hualongdong region of eastern China in 2015, along with 15 other specimens from the Middle Pleistocene period (between 82,800 and 355,000 years ago), A group of unnamed human ancestors who died when they were between 12 and 13 years old, called HLD 6recently underwent morphological and engineering evaluation.
With this, the researchers were able to find an “unexpected” group anatomy that did not fit any existing taxonomic group.
Comparing the jaw of HLD 6 to that of hominids (a group that includes humans and our extinct ancestors) from the Pleistocene and modern humans, Researchers then discovered that it has properties of both.
While its facial structure is similar to that of the modern human lineage, which split from Homo erectus about 750,000 years ago, it lacks the “true chin,” which connects it to older species such as Denisovans, which split from Neanderthals. over 400,000 years ago who also do not have a typical chin like ours.
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“This mixture of ancient and modern human features in the jaw of HLD 6 is surprising, given its age in the late middle Pleistocene, and differs from those in modern members of the genus Homo such as Xujiayao, Penghu and Xiahe,” the study authors said.
Therefore, scientists believe that HLD 6 belongs to one group, which is still nameless and with recent human characteristics. According to the discovery’s authors, more archaeological investigations need to be done to accurately confirm this piece of evidence that could redefine our understanding of the human lineage.
