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| Dragon Man Skull Photo: BBC News Website |
Although the skull was found at
Harbin, north-east China, in 1933, it only came to the attention of scientists
recently. Prof Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum, a leading
UK expert in human evolution, and a member of the research team, said:
"In terms of fossils in
the last million years, this is one of the most important yet discovered… What
you have here is a separate branch of humanity that is not on its way to
becoming Homo sapiens (our species) but represents a long-separate
lineage which evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and
eventually went extinct."
This remarkable discovery has the potential to rewrite the story of human evolution. Analysis suggests that it is more closely related to Homo sapiens than it is to Neanderthals. Researchers have assigned the specimen to a new species: Homo longi, from the Chinese word "long", meaning dragon. The skull is huge compared with the average skulls belonging to other human species. Its brain was comparable in size to those from our species.
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| Artist's impression of what Dragon Man may have looked like Photo: BBC News Website |
Around 100,000 years ago there
were several different groups of humans including modern humans, Neanderthals
and Denisovans.
Neanderthals
The Neanderthals thrived in Europe for around 300,000 years before modern humans arrived. Excavations in Ibex, Vanguard, and Gorham’s Caves in Gibraltar have revealed evidence of Neanderthal occupation dating to possibly as late as 28,000 years ago. This makes Gibraltar the most recent Neanderthal occupation site yet discovered.
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| Reconstruction of what Neanderthals may have looked like |
Denisovans
The Denisovans were a mysterious human species living in Asia before modern humans like us expanded across the world tens of thousands of years ago. Until recently, the only fossils came from a few fragments of bone and teeth from a single site in Siberia - Denisova Cave.
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| Artist's impression of a Denisovan |
"In many ways, Denisovans resembled Neanderthals but in some traits, they resembled us and in others they were unique," said Prof Liran Carmel, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Scientists have found evidence
that the Denisovans lived at high altitudes in Tibet, passing on a gene that
helps modern people cope at similar elevations Present-day Sherpas, Tibetans
and neighbouring populations have a gene variant, which was probably acquired
when Homo sapiens mixed with the Denisovans thousands of years
ago.
Professor Jean Jacques Hublin,
from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany, said:
"We can only speculate
that living in this kind of environment, any mutation that was favourable to
breathing an atmosphere impoverished in oxygen would be retained by natural
selection."
Nesher Ramla Homo Type
Researchers working in Israel
have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human that lived alongside
our species more than 100,000 years ago. They believe the remains uncovered
near the city of Ramla represent one of the "last survivors" of a
very ancient human group. The finds consist of a partial skull and jaw from an
individual who lived between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago. The scientists have
named the newly discovered lineage the "Nesher Ramla Homo type".
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| Skull fragment and jawbone found near Ramla in Israel Photo: BBC News Website |
Conclusion
Humans and chimpanzees are very
closely related and separated about 7.4 million years ago. There is only a 1%
difference between the chimpanzee genome and our own suggesting that we have a
common ancestor.
A re-evaluation of early human
remains and artefacts from Morocco has suggested that the advent of Homo
sapiens may have to be put
back by 100,000 years. Archaeologists and palaeontologists
believe that the oldest of the fossils comes from 300,000 to 350,000 years ago.
Recent discoveries show that
humans left Africa many times prior to 60,000 years ago, and that they
interbred with other hominins in many locations across Eurasia. Around 50,000
years ago, an improvement in the global climate, leading to the appearance of
habitable lands where once there was desert, may have provided the opportunity
for modern humans to spread into Europe.
The Harbin skull represents a new
human lineage evolving in East Asia and is a member of a sister group of H. sapiens
that lived at least 146,000 years ago.
For more information see:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57432104
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57586315
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49760240
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48107498
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