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+--- Thread: Article Study of 1m-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans (/thread-18868.html)
Study of 1m-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans - C C - Sep 28, 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/25/study-of-1m-year-old-skull-points-to-earlier-origins-of-modern-humans
EXCERPTS: : 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.
[...] The latest work used advanced CT imaging, high-resolution surface scanning and sophisticated digital techniques to produce a virtual reconstruction of the skull. The skull’s large, squat brain case and jutting lower jaw are reminiscent of Homo erectus. But the overall shape and size of the brain case and teeth appear to place it much closer to Homo longi, a species that scientists have recently argued should incorporate the Denisovans.
This would push the split between our own ancestors, Neanderthals and Homo longi back by at least 400,000 years and, according to Springer, raises the possibility that our common ancestor – and potentially the first Homo sapiens – lived in western Asia rather than Africa... (MORE - missing details)
https://youtu.be/YmtjPnuaUro