A view of a skull from the Red Deer Cave People.
Posted on 03/14/2012 11:28:18 AM PDT by null and void
A view of a skull from the Red Deer Cave People.
Mysterious fossils of what may be a previously unknown type of human have been uncovered in caves in China, ones that possess a highly unusual mix of bygone and modern human features, scientists reveal.
Surprisingly, the fossils are only between 11,500 and 14,500 years old. That means they would have shared the landscape with modern humans when China's earliest farmers were first appearing.
Darren Curnoe (right) and Andy Herries (left) excavating at Maludong in 2008.
Jutting jaws and flaring cheeks
The Stone Age fossils are unusual mosaics of modern and archaic human anatomical features, as well as previously unseen characteristics. This makes them difficult to classify as either a new species or an unusual type of modern human.
This artist's reconstruction by Peter Schouten suggests what the Red Deer Cave People may have looked like.
Unique features of the Red Deer Cave people seen neither in modern nor known archaic lineages of humans include a strongly curved forehead bone, very broad nose and eye sockets, and very flat cheeks that flare widely to the sides to make space for large chewing muscles. In addition, the place where the lower jaw forms a joint with the base of the skull is unusually wide and deep.
The Red Deer Cave people might possibly even be related to a mysterious branch of humanity known as the Denisovans only discovered in the past two years, whose DNA suggests they were neither like us nor Neanderthals.
Ultimately, to see how closely or distantly related the Red Deer Cave people are to modern humans or even the Denisovans, the scientists want to extract and test DNA from the fossils.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Oh sheeze, these stories are so stupid, honestly, right up there with UFO crap, Scientists are todays fools ...
How did they infer a receding hairline from the bones.
Kind of surprising a bone can fossilize in only 10,000 years.
Judging by the teeth, I’d say British explorers. (sorry!)
Good point! And somehow they know he kept his beard neatly trimmed.
Fossilization doesn't take even that long, given the right conditions.
Return to Quest for Fire.
Well, they DO have a lovely set of tooth.
What aspects of their published paper (not the web press release) drive you to this conclusion?
Of course, life does not exist outside of earth, since it's the center of the universe and all unidentified objects ever seen, by cops, pilots, judges, engineers etc, are all easily explained.
Use of the term “fossil” is pretty fast and loose where mammals are concerned. “Fossils” of mammal bones, and especially genus Homo bones, are almost always just the bones... no mineralization to speak of, but just the actual remnants of the once-living tissue.
You guys might be interested
Yes, maybe it is an ancient UFO pilot who crashed!
Totally agree. Right up there with globull warming is going to cause a man-made asteroid hit the planet in 2015.
If is more often the case that the scientists have their theories correct, but the general public misunderstands or is misled by the media reports.
Human DNA can respond to and provide a large variety of adaptations for the living environment.
One must understand that the word ‘species’ is based on ‘adaptation to environment’.
Why should we even doubt that there are , and have been , a large ‘variety’ of ‘humans’?
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