Anthropologists in China have found a fragment of a lower jaw that may belong to an unknown human lineage.
The bone, which is about 300,000 years old, belonged to a young teenager and contains a unique mosaic of ancient and modern features, according to a new study.
However, since fossil features are open to interpretation, they can also be associated with fossils. a wise man or our close human relatives, experts told Live Science. Over the past decade, researchers have found the remains of at least 16 individuals in the Hualongdong region in east-central China, about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) south of Beijing. A previous analysis of the remains showed that they were dated between 275,000 and 331,000 years ago or the late Middle Ages. Pleistocene period (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) This time period is key to understanding the evolution of our own human lineage, but is complicated by the presence of other now-extinct branches of the human tree, such as Neanderthals and Neanderthals. Denisovans.
Relating to: Some of the first ice age people to venture into the Americas came from China, according to DNA study
In Hualongdong, researchers discovered a nearly complete skull, which they named HLD 6. 2019 And 2021 It showed that this individual, who was probably between 12 and 13 years old when he died, had a modern, human-like face, but a skull that looked more like the oldest skull. He’s a wise man.
After discovering a new HLD 6 part of the lower jaw (lower jaw) in December 2020, the researchers examined the bone and reconstructed the bone for further analysis. They presented their findings in a research paper published July 31. Journal of Human Evolution.
Xiuji Wu And Wu Liu Colleagues and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing took two dozen measurements from the jawbone of HLD 6 and compared them to 83 other known fossil hominins using a technique called geometric morphometry, which uses statistics to compare the 3-dimensional shapes created by the measurements.
HLD 6 had several features that suggested it was the juvenile chin – one of the hallmarks of modern humans. However, the fossil lacked several other features of jaws, leading researchers to conclude that the ancient teenager did not have a jaw.
“The HLD 6 jawbone displays a mosaic pattern with some features commonly found in Middle Pleistocene archaic hominins, Late Pleistocene anatomically modern humans, and recent modern humans,” the researchers wrote in the study.
While HLD 6 has modern human-like features in its facial bones, its mandibles have a more complex set of features that match the diversity in the human lineage in the Middle Pleistocene. This means that Hualongdong individuals may be related. a wise manIt could be Neanderthals or Denisovans or another lineage entirely.
Chris StringerThe skull and jawbone are very interesting, but he doesn’t think HLD 6 is closely related, said the human evolution research leader at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved in this study. a wise man. “The data presented show a distinctive combination of traits that support the idea that there is a third human lineage in China, not China. sapiens nor Neanderthal,” he told Live Science in an email.
Michael BC Rivera, a biological anthropologist at the University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email: “While there were very few fossils to study in previous decades, scientists have not grasped the degree of variation we see now. Middle Pleistocene.” e is dated.” Rivera said this Hualongdong fossil may imply that our evolution was more gradual and more subtle than previously thought, and that “we have only uncovered small fragments of this evolutionary history.”
More research is needed to fully understand how our human species evolved, mingled with others, and roamed the world, Stringer said.
“Large areas of Africa and Southeast Asia still have not produced a single ancient bone or skull,” Stringer said, “but stone tools indicate humans were there, and there is only one significant ancient human fossil so far in the entire Indian subcontinent.”
#Strange #300000yearold #jawbone #China #descended #extinct #humans