An unprecedented skull found in China confused scientists: “A new branch of the family tree”

Scientists are intrigued by a prehistoric skull estimated at 300,000 years old: the remains found in China are unlike any ancient human skull seen before.

The 300,000-year-old ancient skull is unlike any other human fossil found before modern times, and potentially points to a new branch in the human family tree.

According to CNN, an international team of researchers from China, Spain and the United Kingdom unearthed a skull – specifically a lower jaw – in the Hualongdong region of eastern China back in 2015, along with 15 other specimens believed to be period of the Late Middle Pleistocene.

Scientists believe that the Late Middle Pleistocene, which began about 300,000 years ago, was a turning point in the evolution of hominins—species thought to be human or closely related, including modern humans.

Published July 31 in the Journal of Human Evolution, the research team’s study found that the mandible, known as HLD 6, is “unexpected” and does not fit into any existing taxonomic group.

According to the study, many of the Pleistocene hominin fossils found in China were also difficult to classify and were previously seen as anomalies. However, this discovery, along with other recent studies, is gradually changing what people know about the evolutionary pattern at the end of the Middle Pleistocene.

By comparing the lower jaw of HLD 6 to that of Pleistocene hominins and modern humans, the researchers found that it shared features of both, CNN says.

It is similar in shape to the lower jaw of Homo sapiens, our modern human species, which evolved from Homo erectus. But it also shares features with another branch that developed from Homo erectus, the Denisovans. Like Denisovans, HLD 6 does not appear to have a chin.

“HLD6 does not have a true chin, but has some subtle features that seem to anticipate this typical H. sapiens feature,” said study author Maria Martinon-Torres, director of the National Research Center for Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Spain.

Thus, the remains found at Hualongdong “are the earliest fossil population known in Asia that represent this mosaic of primitive and Homo sapiens-like traits,” she added.

The researchers suggest that HLD 6 must belong to an as-yet-unnamed classification, and that characteristics of modern humans may have been present as early as 300,000 years ago, before modern humans arrived in East Asia.

The researchers also took into account the age of the person who owned the jawbone, as the shape of the skull can differ between children and adults.

It is believed that HLD 6 belonged to a 12-13 year old teenager. Although the researchers did not have an adult skull of the same species to compare, they studied the skulls of middle and late Pleistocene hominins of similar and adult age and found that their shape remains the same regardless of age, further supporting the scientists’ theory, notes CNN. en.

According to Maria Martinon-Torres, more work is needed to properly place HLD 6. “More fossils and research are needed to understand their exact position in the human family tree,” she said.