This One Million-Year-Old Skull Skull Reveals a Missing Link in Human Evolution

By: Alyssa Miller | Last updated: Jun 27, 2024

A rare and intriguing discovery has been made in China. The remains of a human-like skull have been analyzed, which confirmed it is part of a long-lost species. This has sparked a wave of excitement among researchers, who are now referring to the skull as a “Dragon Man.”

The shocking discovery, which is estimated to date back over one million years, to a period when Earth was inhabited by other species of humans. Some researchers have suggested the skull is the remains of a hybrid human.

Unusual Skull Discovered in Yunyang District

In early 2022, reports from China mentioned an unusual skull unearthed in the Yunyang District of Hubei province.

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An up-close photograph of “The Yunxian Man.”

Source: Gary Todd/Flicker

According to the archaeologists working in the region, the skull’s features were unlike anything they’d ever seen. They called it “The Yunxian Man.” After careful analysis, researchers determined that the skull could be well over 900,000 years old.

A Third Species of Ancient Human

It is widely accepted that there were two archaic human spieces that roamed the Earth about 30,000 years ago: Neanderthals and Denisovans. These two groups had distinct features and attributes that would eventually blend together to make modern day humans.

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A young family pictured smiling together as they sit on the couch

Source: Freepik

But the Yunxian Man skull was difficult to categorize because of location, age, and psychical characteristics.

The Beginning of Humanity

Humans came into existence about one million years ago in Africa before spreading around the world, but we didn’t start out as Homo sapiens.

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A Was Figure of a Neanderthal at the One Million Years of the Human Story at the Natural History Museum

Source: Paul Hudson/Flickr

The earliest form of human was the Neanderthal, which originated in Europe and Asia around 400,000 years ago. They are characterized by their long skulls, thick ridges above their eyes, and wide, large noses.

Study Confirms Skulls is Long-Lost Relative Species

According to The Daily Mail, a 3-D study was conducted on the skull, and researchers determined that it was a hybrid species, meaning it was made up of one or more different species of humans.

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A photograph of several scientists working in their lab

Source: Freepik

The researchers carefully studied the features of the scan and determined that the Yunxian skull is part Homo sapiens, the race of all humans on Earth, and part Homo longi, a long-lost sister species.

The Dragon Man

The Homo-longi still roamed the Earth around 150,000 years ago. They had some features that resembled modern humans, including their brain size. However, they had unusually square eyes, large brow ridges, and a wide mouth.

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A depiction of a member of the Hono-longi species

Source: Wikimedia

After modern analyses were carried out on a separate skull discovered in China’s Songhua River in the 1930s, researchers concluded that the Homo-longi could be closer related to Homo-sapiens than the Neanderthals, per The Daily Mail.

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Long-Lost Sister Lineage

While the testing done on the Yunxian Man proved the skull was only part Homo-longi, it did conclude the long-held idea that the species is our “long-lost sister lineage.”

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A photograph of the Dali Man Skull

Source: Wikimedia

“It is reasonable to conclude that Yunxian is morphologically and chronologically close to the last common ancestor of the lineages of H. sapiens and Dragon Man,” said the authors of the study on the research site BioRxiv.

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Three Dragon Men Skulls

The skull, discovered in China’s Hubei province, is one of three with ties to the Homo-longi race, often referred to as “Dragon Man.” The name comes from the Long Jiang or Dragon River, where one of the skulls was discovered.

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A photograph of the extensive plains that surround the Long Jiang River

Source: Wikimedia

The skulls were all recovered over the past five decades. Yet they struggled to determine which species it belonged to. “It might seem like simple science to determine what bone fits to what species, but scientists have yet to agree just how many human-like species there were in our recent archeological history,” said archaeologist Anna Goldfield.

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Trying to Understand the Homo-Longi

For a long time, researchers and scientists considered Neanderthals and Denisovans the two oldest hominid groups, both of which roamed the Earth as far back as 300,000 years ago.

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A photograph of scientists conducting research

Source: Freepik

Due to its physical features, including its elongated skull, researchers initially believed the Yunxian man skull belonged to the Denisovan species that originated in Asia around 500,000 years ago.

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The History of Life As Told by the Denisovans

The Denisovans have given researches a ton of information about life long before the Homo sapiens rules the Earth.

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Two researchers are pictured speaking about a recent discovery

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While only a few tiny pieces of bone and teeth have been found, this long extinct spices’ DNA make up some modern day communities. According to the Guardian, 6% of genes found in modern New Guineans and 3% to 5% of aborigianl Australians’ DNA is made up of Denisovans’ DNA.

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Denisovans Migrated to the Asian Continent

Denisovans, whose fossils have only be found in Siberia and China, likely roamed through what is today the Asian continent.

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A piece of Denisovan bone on a outline of a human hand

Source: World History Encyclopedia

Despite being genetically similar enough to interbreed, researchers are not sure how Denisovans looked because only fragments exist and are extremely rare.

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The Great Blending of Spieces

Evidence from the modern humans shows that Denisovans and Neanderthals have interbreeded. Because their genetic make-up was relatively close (like how a horse and donkey are similar), they were able to mate.

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A small group is pictured having a debate around a table

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However, the discovery of the Yunxian Man provides new insight into human evolution and the complex interactions between different hominin species.

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The Story of Human Evolution

It would be incredible if modern humans were always as we are today. But that isn’t the truth. The story of human evolution is fascinating and constantly changing as more and more evidence is discovered from centuries long forgotten by history.

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The evolution of man : a popular exposition of the principal points of human ontogeny and phylogeny / From the German of Ernst Haeckel.

Source: CC0/Rawpixel

The earliest traces of our species’ development into Homo sapiens started a million years ago, making a significant physical and behavioral change influenced by environmental pressures, migration, and adaptation.

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The Earliest Traces of Humans

The earliest traces of modern humans were discovered in Africa. Our direct (and indirect) ancestors come from the lineage that would lead to our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee and bonobos.

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Early hominid "Lucy" Austraiopithecus Afarensis. National Museum of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. 17th December 2013

Source: Paul Ealing 2011/Flickr

While these early hominins were not yet human, they displayed traits that hinted at what would come. One example is the ability to walk upright on two legs, which allowed for more efficient movement.

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Building Upon the World

As different of species of early humans evolved, each one began adapting to the world in new and exciting ways.

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everal stone tools found at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Oregon, including the large orange chalcedony tool found below ash from Mt. Saint Helens.

Source: Patrick O'Grady

These species began using fire and tools, which played a crucial role in their survival and the development of social structures.

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The Homo Genus Arrives

Around 2.5 million years ago, the first appearance of the genus Homo arrived. This genus was characterized by a significant increase in the brain size and use of more complex tools compared to earlier hominins.

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Skeleton and a life reconstruction of the Homo erectus youth from Nariokotome, West Turkana. He had relatively long legs and short arms, as in modern humans, and it was originally proposed that the pelvis was narrow, as in modern humans also (Walker & Leakey, 1993). But the bone is damaged, and interpretation open to question. Later discovery of a complete pre-Neanderthal pelvis from Atapuerca in northern Spain (Arsuaga et al 1999) suggests wide illia were probably the general condition among early hominins, and it seems likely that a narrow pelvis only appeared with Homo sapiens. Reconstructed height 1.6 m.

Source: Mauricio Antón/Wikimedia Commons

The earliest species in this genus is the Homo erectus, a highly successful species that spread throughout Africa and into Asia.

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Finally, We Come into the Picture

Homo sapiens (i.e. you and me), emerged around 300,0000 years ago. We are defined by our larger brains and use of more sophisticated tools, language, and culture.

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Four friends stand closely together, embracing shoulder to shoulder on a hilltop, backlit by the glowing sun setting on the horizon

Source: Helena Lopes/Unsplash

Because Homo sapiens were able to innovate and adapt in new ways, we were able to create art and complex social structures that connected us like never before.

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The Role of Migration in Human Evolution

A big role in the genus ability to evolve and adapt over time was migration. Starting in Africa, humans moved to the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Europe, and, eventually, the Americas.

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A black and white drawing of some nomadic tribes in Asia. One person is on top of a horse and the other is on top of a cow. They are surrounded by a camel, sheep, and a donkey.

Source: New York Ward, Lock/Wikimedia Commons

These migrations allowed interactions between other speices, including Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia. These interactions lead to mating, which has a lasting impact on the human genome.

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Further Research Clarifies Origin of Yunxian Man

Further research on the Yunxian man led researchers to suggest that it could also have descended from the Homo-longi species, which lived on Earth during the same time as the Denosovians.

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A photograph of a man and a woman working in a lab

Source: Wikimedia

After analyzing all of the data they collected, researchers concluded that the Yunxian man was both part Homo-longi and part Homo sapiens, meaning it was an offspring of both.

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Descended of Denisovans and Homo Sapiens

The Yunxian man had the features associated with Homo-longi, including blocky eye sockets and an enormous mouth and molars. However, his brain size was very similar to that of modern humans.

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A photograph of a an adult Homo-sapiens skull

Source: Wikimedia

“The reconstructed Yunxian 2 suggests that it is an early member of the Asian ‘Dragon Man’ lineage, which probably includes the Denisovans, and is the sister group of the Homo sapiens lineage,” the authors wrote.

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An Ancestor of the Two Lineages

According to the authors of the study conducted on the Yunxian man’s skull, there was sufficient evidence to suggest it was a common ancestor of the two lineages.

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Neanderthal painting drawn by artist Charles R. Knight in 1920

Source: Wikimedia

“Both the H. sapiens and Dragon Man lineages had deep roots extending beyond the Middle Pleistocene, and the basal position of the Yunxian fossil cranium suggests it represents a population lying close to the last common ancestor of the two lineages,” said the authors.

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More Research to Be Conducted in the Future

While the paper has yet to be reviewed by other researchers, its lead author, paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni, had conducted previous research on Homo-longi and had been published in prestigious journals such as The Innovation.

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A female researcher is pictured working at her desk

Source: Wikimedia

Ni hopes that further research on the skulls and the regions in which they were found will shed light on this ancient species of humanoid.

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Better Understanding of Denisovans

Researchers have begun postulating the idea that Homo-longi could be related to the Denisovans, one branch of the homo genus that scientists currently know very little about. This is because only 11 partial fossils have ever been discovered.

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A photograph of the cave which produced several fossils of Denisovans

Source: Wikimedia

If scientists can confirm in the future that Homo-longi are, in fact, descendants of the Denisovans, it could help researchers better understand the history of this species and the evolution of humanity.

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Human evolution continues to evolve as new discoveries and technologies shed a light on the complex history that it ingrained into our entire being.

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A group of people sitting outdoors together and looking at a view.

Source: Roberto Nickson/Unsplash

Knowing where we came from and how we came to be could unlock an understand about ourselves. What we do with this knowledge is entirely up to you.

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