Human Skull Dragon Man

'Dragon Man' skull discovered in China is a new human species.

The discovery of a new skull dating back more than 140,000 years could fundamentally alter our understanding of human evolution, scientists say.

Human skull Dragon Man

A near-perfectly preserved skull for more than 140,000 years in northeast China represents a new species of ancient people more closely related to us than even Neanderthals, and could fundamentally alter our understanding of human evolution.

It belonged to a large-brained man in his 50s with deep-set eyes and thick eyebrows.  Other extinct members of the human family tree, although his face was broad, he had flat, low cheekbones that made him look more like modern people.

The research team has linked the specimen to other Chinese fossil finds. It’s calling the species Homo longi or "Dragon Man," a reference to the region where it was discovered.

The Harbin skull was first found in 1933 in the city of the same name, but it was reportedly hidden in a well for 85 years to protect it from the Japanese army.

It was later unearthed and handed over to Ji Qiang, a professor at Hebei GEO University, in 2018.

"According analyzes, the Harbin group is more closely linked to Homo sapiens than Neanderthals; that is, Harbin shared a more recent common ancestor with modern human than Neanderthals". 

This would make Dragon Man our "sister species" and a closer ancestor of modern man than Neanderthals.

The findings were published in three articles in The Innovation magazine. The skull dates back at least 146,000 years. It is placing it in the Middle Pleistocene.

"While displaying typical archaic human features, the Harbin skull features a mosaic combination of primitive and derived characters that is distinguishable from all other previously named Homo species," said Ji, who led the research. The name is derived from Long Jiang. 

The Dragon Man probably lived in a forested floodplain environment as part of a small community.

"This species would have been hunter-gatherers, living off the land," Stringer said. "From today's winter temperatures in Harbin, it appears they were dealing with even more severe cold than Neanderthals."

Given the location where the skull was found and the large man it implies, the team believes that Homo longi may have adapted well to harsh environments and could have spread throughout Asia.

Future genetic sequencing

The researchers first studied the skull. Then they identifying more than 600 features that they entered into a computer model that ran millions of simulations. The main purpose of this work is to determine evolutionary history and relationships between different species.

"These suggest that Harbin and some other fossils that are find China form a third lineage of later humans along with Neanderthals and Homo sapiens," Stringer explained.

The other finds include a fossilized skull from China's Dali province that is believed to be 200,000 years old and was found in 1978, and a jaw found in Tibet that dates back 160,000 years.

Stringer explained that his Chinese colleagues had settled on the name Homo longi, which he called a "great name," but said that he would have liked to refer to the species as Homo Daliensis. Homo Daliensis was previously used for Dali's skull. 

More than 100,000 years ago, several human species coexisted in Eurasia and Africa. These human species including our own, the Neanderthals, and the Denisovans, a recently discovered sister species to Neanderthals. So we can say that "Dragon man" could now be added to that list.

An alternative explanation is that Homo longi and Denisovans are, in fact, the same. The fossils so far attributed to Denisovans include teeth and bones, but not a complete skull, so scientists aren't sure what they looked like.

But Neanderthals and Denisovans were genetically closer to each other than they were to sapiens, while the new study suggests that Homo longi were more anatomically similar to us than Neanderthals. Therefore, the persistent uncertainty may require future genetic sequencing to help clarify it.