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The Harbin cranium is somewhat similar to other Asian fossils like Huanglongdong and Dali in showing unexpected combinations of features, including some previously associated with H. sapiens. The authors also identify similarities between Harbin and the (very few) known ‘Denisovan’ fossils. I think that these studies help bring the evidence together and point to a distinct lineage of Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins closely related to our own lineage as well as that of Neanderthals.” The idea of a species can be somewhat nebulous, however, when you’re thinking about the long and slow transition from Homo erectus to Middle Pleistocene humans to the earliest modern humans that arose around 200,000 years ago to present-day humans. It’s a question of small gradients of change in regions, and whether we can put a boundary on those gradients that’s biologically or evolutionarily meaningful. That analysis suggested that there were three main lineages of later Pleistocene humans, each descended from a common ancestor: H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis and a group containing Harbin and a handful of other Chinese fossils that have proved difficult to classify including those from Dali, Jinniushan and Hualongdong. This is something I teach in my human behavioral biology and evolution course—the idea of classifying species is that it’s a model for understanding variation in organisms, grouping together individual animals that collectively have extremely similar traits. There are a lot of ways to make these groupings. One way—the biological species construct—is to say that to be a member of the same species, you have to be able to reproduce. From that perspective, we would have to say that Denisovans and Neanderthals are also humans, because we know they mated with each other and with Homo sapiens—4 percent of my own genome, for example, is Neanderthal. Claims of a new human species are sure to cause skepticism and spark debate. But it seems that wherever the 146,000-year-old fossil falls on the human family tree, it will add to growing evidence that a fascinating and diverse period of evolution was occurring in China from about 100,000 to 500,000 years ago.
After geochemical detective work to locate where the fossil was likely found, and painstaking comparison of its distinctive features with those of other early humans, some of the scientists investigating the find believe the cranium from Harbin could represent an entirely new human species— Homo longi or "Dragon Man.” If so, they further suggest it might even be the human lineage most closely related to ourselves. Direct uranium-series dating suggests the skull is at least 146,000 years old, but a lot more work was needed to attempt to put the isolated fossil into context after 90 years.Alphedia is the guardian of many Dragon Skulls and works with them on a daily basis for personal healing, group healing, earth healing and client healing.
Ji persuaded the family to donate the specimen to the Geoscience Museum of Hebei GEO University, and the team got to work. They accrued information from 95 fossil crania, jawbones, and teeth representing a range of hominin groups, characterizing more than 600 features. They then used a supercomputer to construct billions of phylogenetic trees, tools used to illuminate the evolutionary relationships between hominins, with the fewest evolutionary steps, which most scientists agree is the most likely possibility. The tree that sprouted placed the Harbin skull on a new branch that is closely related to our own species. Even if Dragon Man is a Denisovan, there would be more puzzles to solve. The DNA of Denisovans clearly shows that their closest cousins were Neanderthals. The new study, based instead on fossil anatomy, indicates instead that Homo longi and Homo sapiens are more closely related to each other than to Neanderthals. a b c Chen, F.; Welker, F.; Shen, C.-C.; etal. (2019). "A late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan mandible from the Tibetan Plateau" (PDF). Nature. 569 (7756): 409–412. Bibcode: 2019Natur.569..409C. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1139-x. PMID 31043746. S2CID 141503768.Yet not all the scientists and outside experts agree that Dragon Man is a separate species—nor do they agree about its relative position on the hominin family tree. The Denisovans, ancient humans who shared an ancestor with Neanderthals and ourselves, left behind evidence of their intimate relations with us in the DNA of modern peoples in Asia and Oceania. So far, however, little physical evidence of them has turned up, only three teeth and two small bone fragments from a Siberian cave.
I prefer to call it Homo daliensis, but it’s not a big deal,” he said. “The important thing is the third lineage of later humans that are separate from Neanderthals and separate from Homo sapiens.” Details are published in three papers in The Innovation. The researchers believe the skull belonged to a male, about 50 years old, who would have been an impressive physical specimen. His wide, bulbous nose allowed him to breathe huge volumes of air, indicating a high-energy lifestyle, while sheer size would have helped him withstand the brutally cold winters in the region. “Homo longi is heavily built, very robust,” said Prof Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei. “It is hard to estimate the height, but the massive head should match a height higher than the average of modern humans.” To work out where the Harbin individual fitted into human history, the scientists fed measurements from the fossil and 95 other skulls into software that compiled the most likely family tree. To their surprise, the Harbin skull and a handful of others from China formed a new branch closer to modern humans than Neanderthals.
Kat J. McAlpine
These suggest that Harbin and some other fossils from China form a third lineage of later humans alongside the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens,” explained Stringer.
Their analysis is interesting—it’s definitely adding more to our knowledge of the region and of human evolutionary history. My expertise is more in paleogenomics, or using genetic analysis of the fossil record to infer characteristics and lineage of human ancestors. To me, one thing that’s really fascinating about this skull [which is missing its lower jaw] is that the researchers also talked about its similarity to a mandible—known as the Xiahe specimen—that has been argued to be from a Denisovan. Who or what were the Denisovans? The Dragons take you on a guided meditation to connect with the Crystalline Dragon Consciousness so you can find out what work they are personally doing for you and with you at this time. An international team led by Prof Qiang Ji at the Hebei Geo University in China drew on geochemical techniques to narrow down when the skull came to rest in Harbin, dating the bones to at least 146,000 years old. The skull has a unique combination of primitive and more modern features, with the face, in particular, more closely resembling Homo sapiens. One huge molar remains.
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Among the different skull fossils the team compared are (left to right) Peking Man ( Homo erectus), Maba ( Homo heidelbergensis), and some harder to classify fossils including Jinniushan, Dali and the Harbin cranium now known as 'Dragon Man.' Qiang Ji, a paleontologist also at Hebei GEO, received the skull in 2018 from a farmer who said the fossil had been dug up by a coworker of his grandfather’s in 1933. During bridge construction over a river in Harbin, China, the worker allegedly scooped the skull out of river sediment. Whether or not that story is true, this fossil could help answer questions about a poorly understood period of human evolution.
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