Dragon Man: Gigantic skull from China forces scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution

SS ^ | 6/26/21 | SS

[Roman_War_Criminal]

The discovery of a huge fossilised skull that was wrapped up and hidden in a Chinese well nearly 90 years ago has forced scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution.

Analysis of the remains has revealed a new branch of the human family tree that points to a previously unknown sister group more closely related to modern humans than the Neanderthals.

The extraordinary fossil has been named a new human species, Homo longi or “Dragon man”, by Chinese researchers, although other experts are more cautious about the designation.

“I think this is one of the most important finds of the past 50 years,” said Prof Chris Stringer, research leader at the Natural History Museum in London, who worked on the project. “It’s a wonderfully preserved fossil.”

Dragon Man: A giant? The skull appears to have a remarkable backstory. According to the researchers, it was originally found in 1933 by Chinese labourers building a bridge over the Songhua River in Harbin, in China’s northernmost province, Heilongjiang, during the Japanese occupation.

To keep the skull from falling into Japanese hands it was wrapped and hidden in an abandoned well, resurfacing only in 2018 after the man who hid it told his grandson about it shortly before he died.

An international team led by Prof Qiang Ji at the Hebei Geo University in China drew on geochemical techniques to narrow down when the skull came to rest in Harbin, dating the bones to at least 146,000 years old. The skull has a unique combination of primitive and more modern features, with the face, in particular, more closely resembling Homo sapiens. One huge molar remains.

The skull, which is 23cm long and more than 15cm wide, is substantially larger than a modern human’s and has ample room, at 1,420ml, for a modern human brain. Beneath the thick brow ridge, the face has large square eye sockets, but is delicate despite its size. “This guy had a huge head,” said Stringer.

The researchers believe the skull belonged to a male, about 50 years old, who would have been an impressive physical specimen. His wide, bulbous nose allowed him to breathe huge volumes of air, indicating a high-energy lifestyle, while sheer size would have helped him withstand the brutally cold winters in the region.

“Homo longi is heavily built, very robust,” said Prof Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei. “It is hard to estimate the height, but the massive head should match a height higher than the average of modern humans.”

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.

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.

“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. (study 1, study 2, study 3).

“Genetic analysis shows that these species interacted and interbred – our own genetics contain the legacy of many of these ghost species. But what is a sobering thought, is that despite all this diversity, a new version of Homo sapiens emerged from Africa about 60,000 years ago which clearly out-competed, out-bred, and even out-fought these other closely related species, causing their extinction. It is only by painstaking searching and analysis of their fossils, such as the Harbin skull, do we know of their existence.”

[flaglady47]

Subtle, very subtle, lol....

[mdmathis6]

They are passages for the facial arteries.

Put your fingers on either side, at the flares of your nose about 1/2 “ out and pointing inwards along the crease toward your eyes...you should be able to feel your pulses.

[Texan5]

People have known for a long time about at least 2 disorders of the pituitary gland that cause abnormal growth-Gigantism and Agromegaly-and afflicted Andre the Giant and others in modern times-it was documented in the Middle Ages and before, so it well could have been affecting humans since the earliest times, counting for the stories of giants who were warriors, kings and who knows what else-today there are treatments for it, but none known before the 20th century...

[AdmSmith]

What are those small holes to the left and right side of the nose?

The infraorbital foramen, an opening into the floor of the eye socket, is the forward end of a canal through which passes the infraorbital branch of the maxillary nerve, the second division of the fifth cranial nerve. But it is not only in humans here are some interesting examples



Comparison of sabre-tooth skull morphologies. (A) Skull of the felid saber-tooth Megantereon cultridens. (B) Skull of the ''marsupial saber-tooth'' Thylacosmilus atrox. Comparisons of sabertoothed skulls are usually portrayed in lateral view: this three-quarter view better illustrates the differences between these two animals (the splaying of the mandibles in T. atrox is exaggerated for effect)

and here is the horse

[SunkenCiv]

Ancient cyclops legends arose from the finding of fossil remains of mammoths; dino fossils in Asia led to (or altered) dragon legends; a whale fossil was viewed by one of the Roman emperors who was told (and at least purported to believe) that it was the grave of a titan. :^)

[Roman_War_Criminal]

Nobody with half a brain should trust Chinamen with anything.

[JimRed]

Diggin’ up Andre the Giant, and Shaq? At what point in time does paleontology and archaeology become grave desecration?

[SunkenCiv]

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Did dinosaur fossils inspire the mythical griffin? Did mammoth bones shape the story of the Gigantomachy? Were the cyclopes modeled on the skulls of dwarf elephants? This video investigates some of the fascinating intersections between fossils and the Greek myths.

This video is part of a collaboration with @NORTH 02 Check out their video "Scimitar Cats, Cave Bears, and Behemoths" for more on the fossils that so fascinated the ancient Greeks and Romans.

If you enjoyed this video, you might be interested in my book “Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.”...

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction
1:37 Dinosaurs and Griffins
3:52 Mammoths and Giants
6:13 Dwarf Elephants and Cyclopes
8:16 Conclusion

Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and the Greek Myths | August 20, 2021 | toldinstone