“Dragon Man” is our closest ancestor: scientists

cScientists announced what or what A skull discovered in northeastern China represents new type The human they baptized as “Dragon Man”., and this, they say, should replace Neanderthals as our closest relative.

The skull of Harbin was discovered in the thirties of the last century in the city of the same name, in Heilongjiang Province, but apparently He hid in a well for 85 years To protect him from the Japanese army.

It was later discovered and handed over to Ji Qiang, a professor at Hebei GEO University, in 2018.

“In our analyses, the Harbin group is more closely related to Homo sapiens than to Neanderthals. In other words, Harbin shared with us a more recent common ancestor of Neanderthals.”

Chris Stringer, co-author of the study from the Natural History Museum in London.

In addition, it was determined that this finding could be responsible for the first The sister species of humans.

“If different species are taken into account, these are the sister species [más estrechamente relacionada]”.

Chris Stringer, co-author of the study from the Natural History Museum in London.

The results were published in three press articles innovation.

This was “Dragon Man”

The skull dates back at least 146,000 years, which places it in the middle Pleistocene and may have a brain similar in size to modern humans, but with larger eye cavities, thick forehead edges, a broad mouth, and large teeth.

Showing typical archaic human traits, the Harbin skull displays a mosaic mixture of primitive and derivative characters that distinguishes it from all other species previously named Homo characters.

Ji Qiang, study assistant.

The name is derived from Longjiang, which literally means “dragon river”. The team believes the skull belonged to a man in his 50s who lived in a floodplain forest.

“These populations could have been hunters and hunters, living on the land…Given the current winter temperatures in Harbin, it appears that they suffered from more severe cold than Neanderthals.”

Chris Stringer, study co-author.

Given where the skull was found, as well as the large size of the man involved, the team believes that Human Longi may have adapted well to harsh environments. It could have spread throughout Asia.

family tree

The researchers studied first The external shape of the skull using more than 600 features, and then run millions of simulations using a computer model To build kinship trees with other fossils.

“These indicate that Harbin and some other fossils from China constitute a third lineage of later humans besides Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.”

Chris Stringer, study co-author.

if he sane man Having arrived in East Asia by the time Homo longi existed, it would have been possible to reproduce, although this is not clear.

There are also many unanswered questions about your culture and technology leveldue to the lack of archaeological materials. But the result could reshape our understanding of human evolution.

“It establishes a third human lineage in East Asia that has its own evolutionary history and shows how important the region is to human evolution,” Stringer said.