Ni and colleagues believed the Harbin skull represents a male, judging by the robustness and size of the skull, who was less than 50 years old, looking at the suture closures and the degree of tooth wearing. They speculated H. longi had perhaps medium-dark to medium-light skin, dark hair, and dark eye color based on reconstructed genetic sequences from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and early modern humans. [1] Pathology [ edit ] 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.

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.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.

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.

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a b c d Shao, Q.; Ge, J.; Ji, Q.; etal. (2021). "Geochemical provenancing and direct dating of the Harbin archaic human cranium". The Innovation. 2 (3): 100131. Bibcode: 2021Innov...200131S. doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100131. PMC 8454624. PMID 34557771. S2CID 237181197.

According to Ni et al. 2021 [1] (note, Xiahe and Denisovans are most closely related to Neanderthals according to nDNA and ancient protein analyses. [5]) More evidence may be on the horizon. The team involved in the new papers is exploring the possibility of genetic analyses for the Dragon Man, Ni says. But they are proceeding with caution because such work requires destroying small samples of the fossil.

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The team generated biogeographic models of Middle Pleistocene human variation, illustrating how different lineages, each descended from a common ancestor, might have evolved according to the fossil record. 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. Looking at Middle Pleistocene humans and their mosaics of Homo erectus and Homo sapien traits, along with regionally distinct traits, we’re grappling with whether these populations show enough substantial differences from our current form to be considered something different from us—in their peer-reviewed papers, these researchers are saying that Dragon Man looks like he fits closer to the category of Homo sapiens than Neanderthals or Denisovans, but that he may represent a unique sister lineage to Homo sapiens, [which they are calling Homo longi]. Given what we know about Dragon Man and other hominins of that time period, what do you think his life might have been like? Looking at his cranium, does that tell us about how intelligent he would have been? Homo groups frequently traversed what’s now northern China as temperatures warmed and rainy periods fluctuated after around 300,000 years ago, says paleoanthropologist Sheela Athreya of Texas A&M University in College Station, who also was not involved in the new studies. But she argues that the Harbin skull looks much like several other Middle Pleistocene Homo fossils from northern China and shouldn’t be classified as a new species. Harvati found the Harbin skull an intriguing mix of features previously associated with other lineages. “Middle Pleistocene human evolution is known to be extremely complex—famously called the 'muddle in the middle,’” she says. “And it has been clear for some time that the Asian human fossil record may hold the key to understanding it.”

Prof John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the idea of a new lineage of humans was “a provocative claim”, because skulls can look similar even among distant relatives. The skull being Denisovan was a good hypothesis, he added, though he was less keen on a new species name. “I think it’s a bad moment in science to be naming new species among these large-brained humans that all interbred with each other,” he said. “What we are repeatedly finding is that the differences in looks didn’t mean much to these ancient people when it comes to breeding.” Direct uranium–thorium dating of various points on the skull yielded a wide range of dates, from 296 to 62 thousand years ago, likely a result of uranium leaching. They statistically determined the most likely minimum age is 146,000 years old, but a more exact value is difficult to determine, given that the exact provenance is unidentifiable. Nonetheless, the skull is well-constrained to the late Middle Pleistocene, roughly contemporaneous with other Chinese specimens from Xiahe, Jinniushan, Dali, and Hualong Cave. [3] Classification [ edit ] Recent human family tree Like its origins, the skull’s 20th-century story isn’t entirely clear. The family that donated the skull to co-author Ji Qiang, at Hebei GEO University’s museum, had been hiding it in a well for three generations. It was unearthed in the 1930s when a railway bridge was built along the Songhua River and the family, suspecting that it was important but unsure what to do with the fossil, had safeguarded the skull ever since. The Chinese researchers believe the Harbin skull is distinct enough to make it a new species, but Stringer is not convinced. He believes it is similar to another found in Dali county in China in 1978.

Saban, Roger (1977). "The Place of Rabat Man (Kebibat, Morocco) in Human Evolution". Current Anthropology. 18 (3): 518–524. doi: 10.1086/201932. ISSN 0011-3204. JSTOR 2741407. S2CID 144069991. We wish to help those lightworkers who are ready and evolved highly enough to remember the power of the Dragon wisdom and the great allies that we can be to assist you in your healing and your spiritual growth. 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. What comes next really depends on how well the skull is preserved. To get genomic data, we’d need to take a small piece of that skull, grind it up, and sequence it for DNA in a very carefully controlled setting to make sure the sample isn’t contaminated with DNA from contemporary humans. At 146,000 years old, it’s theoretically possible to get DNA out of it. If it was in a relatively warm, wet area, however, there might be less DNA preserved. But the original discovery of Denisovan DNA came from the fossil record—that tooth and pinky finger I mentioned—so I’m very optimistic that it’s possible. Having a full cranium is amazing, and I’m really happy they posted so many images of it so we can see what it looks like. At this point, paleoanthropologists have only just taken the first step of characterizing how this individual fits into human history. How might Dragon Man fit into that picture, given the initial characterization? An alternative explanation is that Homo longi and Denisovans are in fact one and the same. Fossils so far attributed to Denisovans include teeth and bones but not a full skull, so scientists are unsure what they looked like.