Discovery of 'Dragon Man' skull in China prompts rethink of human evolution
Excerpt: Researchers said in their findings, published Friday as three separate papers in the journal The Innovation, that Homo longi could replace Neanderthals as the closest relative to our own species, Homo sapiens. The discovery of the new species is connected to a skull known as the Harbin cranium, a fossil thought to have been discovered decades ago but only recently studied. "It is widely believed that the Neanderthal belongs to an extinct lineage that is the closest relative of our own species," Xijun Ni, a professor of primatology and paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei GEO University, and author of two of the papers, told The Associated Press. "However, our discovery suggests that the new lineage we identified that includes Homo longi is the actual sister group of Homo sapiens." (...) It added that the skull, which is about 9 inches long and more than 6 inches wide, is big enough to hold a brain that is similar in size to that of a modern human — around 3 pounds (1,420ml) in brain volume. Researchers believe it belonged to a male, aged about 50. The cranium is thought to have been discovered in 1933 when a bridge was built over the Songhua River in Harbin City, in China’s Heilongjiang province, the study said, adding that information about the exact site was lost because of its "long and confused history." Junyi Ge, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and one of the study’s team members, said they were “quite confident” that it was more than 146,000 years old. [The article continues below the images. I’ve long suspected “humans” are much older than was previously accepted. This is just one more bit of evidence in favor of that. Emphasis has been added. Ron P.]
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