Humanity has come a long way from its roots—an undeniable fact—but sometimes we collectively need a good look inside ourselves to find out where we’re really from. We’ve known for decades that life on Earth came about and diversified as a result of evolution by natural selection, and the evidence is written in the DNA of each and every living thing, as well as remaining fossilized evidence buried under tons of rock and eons of geologic time. That’s how we’ve mapped out our family tree this whole time; researchers find some new fossil that resembles a human, and they get sent to institutions to truly determine if they belong on the human family tree or not. This instance appears to be one of them, as a new study published across three articles in The Innovation revealed what is perhaps yet another addition to the family: the “Dragon Man.”
Described by a skull nicknamed the “Harbin cranium,” named after the Chinese city where it was first discovered, the species was named Homo longi. The city of Harbin is located in the province of Long Jiang, which translates to “dragon river,” hence the naming of the new species, which roughly translates to “dragon man.” The skull was actually found all the way back in 1933; it was, however, kept in private for so many years. It was only in 2017 when the skull was finally donated to scientists at Hebei GEO University.
Originally described to be another specimen of another human relative, Homo heidelbergensis, the research team found enough differences in skull features to designate it as the newest member of the family tree. Perhaps the most striking of differences is its skull size—the largest of any human species found thus far. The Harbin cranium is said to possess “a mosaic combination of primitive and derived characters” that differentiated it from other Homo species, according to study author QIang Li.
Analysis revealed the Harbin cranium to be around 146,000 years old. This dates it to a time associated with modern human (Homo sapiens) migrations through the Eurasian landmass. This implies that modern humans quite possibly interacted—and if past evidence is anything to go by, also interbred with—H. longi. The story appears to be analogous to that developed from years’ worth of evidence for Homo neanderthalensis, or the Neanderthals. Genetic analysis of H. longi, however, revealed that the newly-discovered species is much more closely related to us than even the Neanderthals, whose lineage was previously designated the closest human relatives.
Said Xijun Ni, another author of the study: “[T]he Harbin cranium provides more evidence for us to understand Homo diversity and evolutionary relationships among these diverse Homo species and populations.”
Bibliography
- Irving, M. (2021, June 25). New “Dragon Man” human species may be our closest relative. New Atlas. Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://newatlas.com/science/dragon-man-homo-longi-closest-human-relative/
- Ji, Q., Wu, W., Ji, Y., Li, Q., & Ni, X. (2021). Late Middle Pleistocene Harbin cranium represents a new Homo species. The Innovation, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100132
- Ni, X., Ji, Q., Wu, W., Shao, Q., Ji, Y., Zhang, C., Liang, L., Ge, J., Guo, Z., Li, J., Li, Q., Grün, R., & Stringer, C. (2021). Massive cranium from Harbin in northeastern China establishes a new Middle Pleistocene human lineage. The Innovation, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100130
- Shao, Q., Ge, J., Ji, Q., Li, J., Wu, W., Ji, Y., Zhan, T., Zhang, C., Li, Q., Grün, R., Stringer, C., & Ni, X. (2021). Geochemical provenancing and direct dating of the Harbin archaic human cranium. The Innovation, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100131
