Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests Humans Split From Ancestors Earlier — in Asia, Not Africa

Also Read

 

A digital reconstruction of a million-year-old skull discovered in central China suggests that humans may have diverged from their ancient ancestors 400,000 years earlier than previously thought — and in Asia rather than Africa, according to a study published Friday.

The fossil, known as Yunxian 2, was unearthed in 1990 in Hubei province and long thought to belong to Homo erectus. But new imaging and modelling techniques have revealed features closer to later-evolving species, including Homo longi (the so-called “Dragon Man”) and even Homo sapiens.

“This changes a lot of thinking,” said Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at London’s Natural History Museum and a co-author of the study. “It suggests that by one million years ago, our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex evolutionary split than believed.”

The findings, published in Science, rely on advanced CT scanning, structured light imaging and virtual reconstruction, which produced a full digital model of the crushed skull. The reconstructed specimen was compared with more than 100 other fossils, revealing a blend of traits: a protruding lower face similar to Homo erectus, but a larger braincase resembling Homo longi and Homo sapiens.

Shifting the Narrative

If correct, the study implies that the evolutionary lines leading to modern humans, Neanderthals and other hominins may have branched off far earlier than the widely accepted timeline of around 600,000 years ago.

It also challenges the assumption that early humans dispersed primarily from Africa, said Michael Petraglia, director of Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, who was not involved in the research.

“There’s a big change potentially happening here, where East Asia is now playing a very key role in hominin evolution,” Petraglia told AFP.

Debate Far From Settled

However, some experts urged caution. Andy Herries, an archaeologist at La Trobe University, argued that fossil shape can be misleading and should not outweigh genetic evidence.

“They’ve got this interpretation that I don’t really think takes into account the genetic histories of these things that we do know,” Herries said.

Petraglia described the work as “provocative,” but added: “I think the jury’s still out. There will be a lot of questions raised.”

The study is the latest to complicate our understanding of human evolution. In 2021, Homo longi was identified as a new species and close human relative, further blurring the lines of our shared ancestry.

“Fossils like Yunxian 2 show just how much we still have to learn about our origins,” Stringer said.