Human evolution: possible new hominin species (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 25, 2021, 18:13 (1035 days ago) @ David Turell

One strange skull from Northern china:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/dragon-man-fossil-skull-may-represen...

"The strange skull appeared soon after the Japanese invaded northeast China in the early 1930s. A team of locals was raising a bridge near Harbin, a city in China’s northernmost province, when one of the workers stumbled on a surprise in the river mud. The nearly complete human skull had an elongated cranium from which a heavy brow bone protruded, shading the gaping squares that once housed eyes.

"And then there was the skull’s unusual size: "It's enormous," says paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum.

***

"Now, nearly 90 years later, a study published in the journal The Innovation makes the case that this skull represents a new human species: Homo longi, or the Dragon Man.

"Two additional studies reveal that the stunningly preserved cranium likely came from a male that died at least 146,000 years ago. Its mashup of both ancient and more modern anatomical features hints at a unique placement on the human family tree.

"'I’ve held a lot of other human skulls and fossils, but never like this," says paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is an author of all three studies.

"Based on the shape and size of the Harbin skull, as it's often called, and comparison to other known fossils, the researchers posit that it’s closely related to several other perplexing human fossils, from this same time period, that have been found across Asia. The researchers’ analysis suggests all these fossils belong to a group that is closely related to our own species—perhaps even more so than the Neanderthals.

***

"'We forget, even as anthropologists, that it’s really weird for us to be the only hominins left alive," says Laura Buck, biological anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University, who was not part of the study team. (my bold)

***

"If not its own species, what was the Dragon Man? Stringer points to a similar mix of modern and more ancient traits in a fossil called the Dali cranium, which the new study categorized in the same group as the Harbin skull. Found in Shaanxi Province in Northwest China, this skull is considered its own species, Homo daliensis.

"'There is already a bit of an inflation of species names in anthropology," adds Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto, who was not part of the study team. He thinks it’s preferable to group the skull with H. daliensis, or leave the species unnamed, rather than coining a new species moniker."

Comment: Variations in form should be considered rather than multiple species, but even so the hominin bush is big, and could be the result of different types interbreeding and hybridizing. Note my bold. I'm not surprised because of our probable superior brain.