It is important that we learn more about ancient humans if we are to understand the origins of humanity. That’s why it’s always exciting for scientists to uncover ancient human skulls hidden in the fossil record. But an ancient human skull found in China is particularly noteworthy as it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
This skull was unearthed by an international team of scientists who described it as “unlike any other hominin found before,” ScienceAlert reports. The skull has a longer crest and is unlike any of the skulls of other ancient humans found in the past, including Neanderthals.
These new bones are currently labeled HLD 6 and were discovered in 2019 at Hualongdong in East Asia. Since then, scientists have been trying to connect the ancient human skull and bones to one of the already known ancient human lineages.
Its facial structure is similar to the modern human lineage believed to have diverged from Homo erectus up to 750,000 years ago. But the similarities end there. For now, this new discovery is believed to be a previously unknown lineage between modern humans and Denisovans that diverged from Neanderthals roughly 400,000 years ago.
These estimates may change as we learn more about the structure of bones and more fossils are discovered. Because hominid fossils found in China don’t easily fit into a particular lineage, scientists definitely need to study more before they can definitively tell where this particular ancient human skull lies in the lineage of human history.
The study of the ancient skull was published in the September issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
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