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An ancient skull, long hidden at the bottom of a well, may be the key to opening a whole new chapter of human evolution. Researchers believe they have discovered a new species, dubbed ‘dragon man’, based on a well-preserved skull found in Harbin, China in 1933. The skull is thought to be evolutionarily closer to Homo sapiens than Neanderthals, which led to the establishment of the new taxon Homo longi. Taken from the Chinese word “long” which means “dragon”.
🚨 BREAKING NEWS: A massive skull found in the Songhua River in China represents a new sister lineage to Homo sapiens. It dates back at least 146,000 years and has been dubbed the “Dragon Man”.
This is a fascinating piece in the jigsaw of human evolution. https://t.co/o3SMeyE8Pm
– Natural History Museum (NHM_London) June 25, 2021
The skull was reportedly discovered in 1933 by a Chinese worker during the construction of a bridge over the Songhua River that runs through northern China’s Heilongjiang Province, which translates to the Black Dragon River region (hence the nickname “Dragon Man”). The city was under Japanese occupation at that time, so that the skull did not fall into the hands of the Japanese, the worker smuggled the skull to his home, where he buried it at the bottom of his family well. The skull was hidden for 80 years until the man, on his deathbed, told his grandson about the fossil in 2018.
The “Dragon Man” belongs to an ancient human group that lived in East Asia at least 146,000 years ago, and is characterized by a broad face, deep square eye sockets, a prominent forehead, large teeth and, most importantly, a large cranium, measuring 9 inches long and more than 6 inches, much larger than a modern human skull. The skull has a cranial capacity of about 48 fluid ounces, which corresponds to the cranial capacity range of modern Homo sapiens. This brain ability, in combination with primitive traits, creates a new brachycephalic species that may be the closest branch of our evolution tree.
Professor Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said: “The Harbin skull is the most important fossil I have seen in 50 years. It shows how important East Asia and China are in telling the story of man.” He continued, “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 separate strain long ago that evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and eventually became extinct.”
The new extinct ancient human just fell https://t.co/nks8nrNjMV
– Michael Ruston (@michaelroston) June 25, 2021
Researchers believe the skull belonged to a man in his fifties, who had a broad, bulbous nose that allowed him to inhale large amounts of air. Based on this, they believe that the man led a very active lifestyle and likely had a well-built physique and muscles that would help him survive the harsh winters of the region.
Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Sciences at UCLA, said, “The beautifully preserved ancient Harbin human skull adds further evidence that human evolution was not a simple evolutionary tree but a dense, tangled shrub. We now know that there were as many as 10 different hominin species at the same time our species appeared.”
“We found our long-lost sister lineage,” said Professor Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei Geo University in China. He added in an interview with the BBC: “I said, Oh my God!”. I couldn’t believe it was so well preserved. You can see all the details. It’s a really cool find! “
People keep tweeting at me about discovering this Dragon Man. This is all cheating and I got a response. https://t.co/5XsAGonBRl pic.twitter.com/isd4HvbOhD
– Strong Bad (@StrongBadActual) Jun 25, 2021
(via The Guardian, Photo: screencap/The Telegraph)
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