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Paleontology has a way of throwing curveballs at science more than other disciplines. For example, these days we have the fascinating case of the “Dragon Man”, after a Chinese family donated a complete human skull that is much larger than any other skull seen in the world. Homo gender.
The skull, which was hidden in a wall for 90 years, is now theorized as a new species of our genus and that it shares more points in common with us than the Neanderthal.
Three years ago, a family of farmers donated the skull, which had been found in Harbin province, in the far north of China, to GEO University in Harbin. The story goes that it was discovered by a family member on a muddy bank during the construction of a bridge, and that without knowing what to do with it, they hid it inside a wall for almost a century.
Now, after painstaking chemical detective work and analysis against others Homo sapien skulls, researchers Ji Qiang and Ni Xijun postulate that it is a new species, In most or “Dragon Man”. It is dated to have lived 136,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene, and the mineral content found within the bone is strikingly similar to other human remains from the same period found in Harbin.
“The discovery of the Harbin skull and our analyzes suggest that there is a third lineage of archaic humans [that] once lived in Asia, and this lineage has [a] closer relationship with H. sapiens than with Neanderthals, ”said lead author Ni Xijun Smithsonian.
The basic routes to the conclusion of the new species were that it is the largest of all known ones. Homo skulls. He has a comically thick brow and square shaped eye sockets. The most advanced work included the comparison of 600 morphological characteristics of the Longi skull with 95 other skulls of various species.
A following suggested mathematical analysis that modern humans evolved through three separate lineages, one of which H. long and various other Pleistocene Asian humans such as those found in Hualongdong and Dali.
Another possibility is that the skull is actually what scientists have for years called a “Denisovan,” a mysterious group of humans that existed in Siberia but left only a few teeth and two bone fragments.
Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, contributed to the project, but feels that a new species name is not worth creating as it is generally understood that the shapes of the skulls, the width of the shoulders, the size of the nasal cavity or any of the features that we use to distinguish species today was not important at the time of reproduction. There are individuals today that carry a surprising amount of Neanderthal DNA.
“I prefer to call it daliensis man, but it’s not a big deal, “said Springer, speaking to The Guardian. “The important thing is the third lineage of later humans that are separated from Neanderthals and separated from Homo sapiens.”
“Certainly this specimen could be Denisovan but we have to be cautious. What we need is much more complete skeletal material from Denisovans along with DNA, ”he added.
One thing is for sure: the huge skull it harbored a large brain, and they both adjusted to a large body. The skull belonged to a man in his 50s and would have been as tall as modern adult men. Its greatly enlarged nasal cavity meets the needs of a high-octane hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and is typical of the animal adaptations necessary to survive the brutal cold of northern winters.
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The other Asian species like H. dalinesis he lived in the tropical south. Paleoanthropologists believe that the large brain cavity inherent in both skulls would adapt to the challenges of surviving in two different harsh climates, and that other adaptations developed later.
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