A new extinct human species found in China may replace Neanderthals as our closest relatives

 

 

In 1933 a mysterious fossil skull was discovered near Harbin City in the Heilongjiang province of north-eastern China. Despite being nearly perfectly preserved – with square eye sockets, thick brow ridges and large teeth – nobody could work out exactly what it was. The skull is much bigger than that of Homo sapiens and other human species – and its brain size is similar to that of our own species. Historical events left it without a secure place of origin or date, until today.

Now a team of Chinese, Australian and British researchers has finally solved the puzzle – the skull represents a previously unknown extinct human species. The research, published as three studies in the journal Innovation, suggests this is our closest relative in the human family tree.

Dubbed Homo longi, which can be translated as “dragon river”, it is named after the province in which it was found. The identification of the skull, thought to have come from a 50-year-old male, was partly based on chemical analysis of sediments trapped inside it.

This confirmed it comes from the upper part of the Huangshan rock formation near Harbin City. The formation was reliably dated to the Middle Pleistocene – 125,000 to 800,000 years ago. Uranium series dating, which involves using the known rate of decay of radioactive uranium atoms in a sample to work out its age, showed that the fossil itself is at least 146,000 years old.

Homo longi can now take its place among an ever-increasing number of hominin species across Africa, Europe and Asia.