Study of 1m-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

[muriel_volestrangler]

A million-year-old human skull suggests that the origins of modern humans may reach back far deeper in time than previously thought and raises the possibility that Homo sapiens first emerged outside of Africa.

Leading scientists reached this conclusion after reanalysis of a skull known as Yunxian 2 discovered in China and previously classified as belonging to a member of the primitive human species Homo erectus.

After applying sophisticated reconstruction techniques to the skull, scientists believe that it may instead belong to a group called Homo longi (dragon man), closely linked to the elusive Denisovans who lived alongside our own ancestors.

This repositioning would make the fossil the closest on record to the split between modern humans and our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, and would radically revise understanding of the last 1m years of human evolution.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/25/study-of-1m-year-old-skull-points-to-earlier-origins-of-modern-humans

The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans

Editor’s summary
It is now well known that there were at one time many Homo lineages. Understanding of the differences among these lineages is largely dependent upon crania that are rare and often damaged and deformed by age. Feng et al. reconstructed the 1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 cranium using an approach that allowed for removal of much of the compression and distortion naturally present in the fossil. In doing so, they found that the cranium contained both primitive and derived traits and concluded that it is representative of the H. longi clade, which is sister to H. sapiens and likely contained the Denisovans. —Sacha Vignieri

Abstract
Diverse forms of Homo coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene. Whether these fossil humans represent different species or clades is debated. The ~1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 fossil from China is important for understanding the cladogenesis of Homo and the origin of Homo sapiens. In this study, we restored and reconstructed the distorted Yunxian 2 cranium using recently introduced technology. The results show that this cranium displays mosaic primitive and derived features. Morphometric and phylogenetic analyses suggest that it is an early member of the Asian H. longi clade, which includes the Denisovans and is the main part of the sister group to the H. sapiens clade. Both the H. sapiens and H. longi clades have deep roots extending beyond the Middle Pleistocene and probably experienced rapid early diversification. Yunxian 2 may preserve transitional features close to the origins of the two clades.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado9202

[twodogsbarking]

1. Science for all. The more the better. Thanks for the post.