Palaeontology

Mystery surrounds ancient skulls in China

By T.K. Randall
March 4, 2017

Image: Cro-Magnon Artists Painting Woolly Mammoths in Font-de-Gaume
Credit: Charles Robert Knight (1920) / (PD) Copyright Expired The skulls, which date back between 105,000 and 125,000 years, appear to contain a mixture of Neanderthal and modern human features, suggesting that they may belong to an as-yet unknown species of human - a possible missing link in the human family tree in east Asia.

There is also a chance that the skulls could be evidence of the Denisovans - another human ancestor that lived sometime between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.

"It is a very exciting discovery," said Neanderthal expert Katerina Harvati. "Especially because the human fossil record from east Asia has been not only fragmentary but also difficult to date."Finds like these are particularly rare, which is why there are still so many gaps in our knowledge of how our ancestors, after emerging from Africa, went on to spread across the globe.

There are also several species of early human that we currently know nothing about at all.

"China is rewriting the story of human evolution," said paleoanthropologist Maria Martinon-Torres from the University College London. "I find this tremendously exciting!"

Source: Science Alert

Tags: Skull, Denisovan