Palaeontology

1 million-year-old skull pushes human origins back by 400,000 years

By T.K. Randall
September 26, 2025 ·  13 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Known as Yunxian 2, the skull - which was discovered in China and dates back one million years - had long been thought to belong to a more primitive species of human known as Homo erectus.

Now, however, a brand new analysis of the skull has suggested that it instead belonged to Homo longi (also known as 'Dragon Man') which had close ties to the Denisovans.

If true, this would date the skull near to the time when our ancestors diverged into three distinct groups (the Denisovans, the Neanderthals and modern humans) while also pushing back the date of our own species' emergence by some 400,000 years.It also adds credence to the idea that our species arose in Asia, not Africa.

"This changes a lot of thinking because it suggests that by one million years ago our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed," said Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.

"It more or less doubles the time of origin of Homo sapiens."

"This fossil is the closest we've got to the ancestor of all those groups."

Source: The Guardian | Comments (13)

Tags: Human, Ancestor