A 300,000-year-old fossilized jawbone has been found by scientists in a cave in eastern China; it might represent a new branch in the human evolutionary tree.
Digital reconstruction of the skull that was found in Hualongdong, China
It's interesting how the specimen combines elements from the past and the present.
It raises more questions about what kind of prehistoric humans lived there for about 800,000 years between the Middle and Late Pleistocene.
The mandible, like Homo sapiens, lacks a genuine chin
The mandible was unearthed in Hualongdong, an area in eastern China, and it was discovered to have both contemporary and ancient traits.
Early human species like Homo erectus shared a robust jawbone along with them.
In addition, it lacks the genuine chin that distinguishes Homo sapiens. The side of the mandible that connects to the upper jaw, however, resembles contemporary humans more and is thinner than that of early hominins.
Early Homo sapiens may have had a common progenitor with us
According to palaeoanthropologist Xiujie Wu, who was a member of the study, the Hualongdong people may represent an early Homo sapiens progenitor or near cousin that has never been identified.
The Hualongdong mandible has traits from both the past and the present, just like the remains discovered in the early 2000s in the Moroccan archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud.
One of the first members of the evolutionary lineage that contains Homo sapiens is assumed to be represented by the Jebel Irhoud bones.
Understanding the Pleistocene human ancestry of East Asia
"More fossils and studies are necessary to understand [the Hualongdong people's] precise position in the human family tree," mentioned Martinón-Torres, a team member.
She asserted that ancient proteins taken from bones could provide more information about the Hualongdong people's relationships with both more primitive species and modern humans.
Researchers found the bones of 16 people during cave excavations in China. Numerous of these remains were discovered to be those of a 12- to 13-year-old boy's cranium.
It is unclear how humans have occupied East Asia
Yameng Zhang of Shandong University claims that the image of human occupancy in East Asia throughout the Pleistocene is unclear. It is unknown which of the various archaic hominin species that lived in East Asia during the Middle Pleistocene could have been the ancestors of modern humans.
