Just a few years ago , archeologists in China excavate a 300,000 - year - old hominin mandibula with a curious shape not quite like modernistic human beings , but unlike most ancient hominins see before . reasonably sensationally , they speculate this unknown someone may be an undescribed “ baby lineage ” in the human family Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree .
The haggard remains were discover at Hualongdong cave in Anhui responsibility of easterly China . Among the 16 hominin fossils get hold here , one in particular catch the middle of the research worker : Hualongdong 6 , akaHLD6 . The cadaver of this mortal consist of a intimately complete jawbone , as well as a partial skull and a few leg bones .
Describing the individualin a 2019 paper , the Chinese researchers mention that the skull stick out many similarities to modern human beings , but it does n’t appear to have a true mentum – a primal feature ofHomo sapiens – which suggests it calculate more akin to older archaic hominin relatives . The skull also dates to 300,000 years ago , before the emergence of modern humans in East Asia .
In sum , HLD6 has a “ mosaic ” of trait that are typical of bothH. sapiensand ancient hominins , make it a very unusual individual that potentially foreshadows later on modern human forms .
“ Even though the predominantly modern human - same geomorphological features in the [ … ] facial bones suggest that [ the specimen ] bears similarities to modern humans , the mosaic morphological pattern of the [ … ] submaxilla revealed in the present work supports the complicated geomorphological diversity that be in the belated Middle Pleistocene hominin record in East Asia , ” the researchers spell in 2019 .
Can we conceive them a new species of human relative , though ?
Other skulls with “ mosaic morphologies ” found in China have previously been attribute toDenisovans , a mysterious “ sister species ” of humans that roam from Siberia to Southeast Asia , in some parts overlapping withH. sapiensand Neanderthals .
Given HDL6 ’s unparalleled portmanteau of features , however , the researcher write that they may belong to to “ a third blood line that is neitherH. erectusnor Denisovan but one that is phylogenetically close toH. sapiens . ”
“ In oecumenical terms , the HLD hominin fossil delineate here and elsewhere could potentially belong to to the ‘ nonerectus ’ Asian Middle Pleistocene group , given the lack of distinctive classicH. erectustraits , but exhibit more derived , modern human being - same and loutish - like features , ” the work authors write .
“ This hypothesis accords with a of late purport scenario that envisage the rootage of the last common ancestor for bothH. sapiensand Neanderthals in Southwest Asia and a later enlargement into all continents , including Asia , ” they summate .
For now , there ’s regrettably not enough evidence to make a concrete conclusion . To target the Hualongdong hominin in the human crime syndicate Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , archeologists will need further inquiry and , better still , the discovery of more similar fossils .
