Chinese scientists have analyzed the skull, found almost 90 years ago in Harbin, and found that it belongs to a hitherto unknown human species that lived about 146 thousand years ago.
They write about it BBC and Daily Mail.
Scientists have proposed to name the new human species Homo longi – the last word in Chinese means “dragon”.
During the analysis of the skull, which was found in Japanese-occupied Harbin in 1933, a sediment was found in the nasal cavity that coincided with the soil in one of the sites near the bridge over the Sungari – it dated from 138 to 309 thousand years ago. With the help of radiocarbon analysis, it was established that the minimum age of the skull is 146 thousand years.
To understand who the skull belongs to, a computer model was created, which compared 55 features of the find (for example, the size of its individual parts or the presence / absence of certain teeth) with 95 other already known samples.
Experts do not plan to extract DNA from the Chinese skull yet. But previous calculations show that this person is closer to the people of Homo Sapiens than to the Neanderthals.
Earlier we said that fragments of the skull of an ancient man were found in Israel.
– .
