Beijing:
Researchers in China's Dragon River area unearthed a huge fossilised skull. Scientists now believe that this skull represents a new type of ancient human.
Scientists now believe that this skull represents a new species of ancient people. So far, the human race has officially acknowledged three species, one of which is the current human race, or homo sapiens. This recent discovery adds a new species to the list.
The unearthed skull dates back at least 140,000 years. It belonged to an adult man with a large brain, enormous brow ridges, deep-set eyes, and a big nose. The skull had been buried in an unused well for 85 years until a labourer discovered it on a Chinese building site.
The scientists concluded that the fossil was at least 146,000 years old, but no older than 309,000 years, based on its chemical makeup.
The new species has been named 'Homo longi,' and it was dubbed 'Dragon Man,' after the Dragon River area of northeast China, where the skull was unearthed.
To make matters more fascinating, experts now believe that this species was an extinct human species that was mainly linked to our own. This disproves the previously held belief that Neanderthals were more closely linked to Homo sapiens. If verified, this may fundamentally alter our understanding of how, and even where, our species, Homo sapiens, developed. This result was called into doubt by a number of specialists, who published their findings in three articles. However, many people believed the discovery may aid scientists in reconstructing the human family tree.
The researchers contend that Dragon Man's physical characteristics are present in no previously recognised species of hominin, the lineage of bipedal apes that split from other African apes and subsequently evolved into a succession of larger-brained species that spread over the globe.
'It's distinctive enough to be a different species,' said Christopher Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at London's Natural History Museum and co-author of two of the three Dragon Man studies.
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