Palaeontology

Skull found in China may have belonged to long-lost 'Dragon Man'

By T.K. Randall
May 22, 2024 ·  4 comments

One of the three 'Yunxian Man' skulls. Image Credit: Gary Todd The three skulls, known collectively as 'Yunxian Man', were discovered in 1989, 1990 and 2022 at the Xuetangliangzi site in China's Yunyang district.

The first two were crushed and distorted, though the third had managed to avoid too much damage.

For decades, the question of which human ancestor the skulls belonged to continued to endure.

Some believed that the skulls were early Homo sapiens (modern humans), while others thought they were more likely to be Homo erectus.Now, though, after painstakingly reconstructing one of the skulls using 3D modeling software, scientists have concluded that it was in fact a hybrid - the last known common ancestor of modern humans and the long-lost Dragon Man lineage.

"The reconstructed Yunxian 2 suggest that it is an early member of the Asian 'Dragon Man' lineage, which probably includes the Denisovans, and is the sister group of the Homo sapiens lineage," the study authors wrote.

"Both the H. sapiens and Dragon Man lineages had deep roots extending beyond the Middle Pleistocene, and the basal position of the Yunxian fossil cranium suggests it represents a population lying close to the last common ancestor of the two lineages."

The 'No. 3 Skull of Yunxian Man' was unearthed at the Xuetang Liangzi site in Shiyan, central China's Hubei Province. The skull fossil, roughly 1 million years old, is believed to be the most intact Homo erectus specimen of its age found in inland Eurasia.#China pic.twitter.com/0cf81qjhpK

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Source: Mail Online | Comments (4)

Tags: Skull, Human