Did a Million-Year-Old Skull Rewrite Human Evolution's History?

CGTN Europe

A million-year-old human skull discovered in China is reshaping our understanding of human evolution. Scientists expect to uncover more early representatives of these lineages and are eager to study the fossil in greater detail. Professor Chris Stringer, Human Evolution Research Lead at the Natural History Museum, spoke to CGTN Europe about the discovery.

Transcript

00:00Humans emerged at least half a million years earlier than first thought,

00:04according to a million-year-old human skull found in China.

00:09Scientists claim their analysis changes our understanding of human evolution

00:14and could rewrite the history of the human race.

00:18Well, Juliet Mann has been speaking to one of the scientists behind this research.

00:23This skull actually has been out of the ground for a long time.

00:26It was found back in 1990 in central China, and it dates to about a million years ago,

00:32so it's a very interesting fossil just from that point of view.

00:35And it was found with, there are two other skulls from the site,

00:40and this one had been crushed in the ground, so it was out of shape.

00:45And my Chinese colleagues have applied some very nice techniques using CT scanning and computers

00:52to reconstruct the skull close to its original shape.

00:57And that meant for the first time it could be studied properly,

01:00comparing it with over a hundred other human fossils.

01:04Well, that's the thing, isn't it?

01:06There are very many different human skulls that are out there.

01:11What stands out from this particular study that helps you learn something new?

01:15Yes, so, at a million years old, the expectation was that this fossil belonged to the species Homo erectus, erect human,

01:25and that's a widespread species.

01:28We know it was in Africa, it was certainly over in China and Java, earlier on in Western Asia.

01:36So this species was around widely, and it was assumed that this specimen belonged to that species.

01:42But I had seen pictures of it and studies of it from before, and I doubted that it belonged to Homo erectus.

01:50And so, joining with my Chinese colleagues, we've been able to analyze it and show that it is different from Homo erectus.

01:57It represents something new, and our analyses suggest that it's an early member of the group.

02:02That included Dragoman, Homo longi, and also these people called the Denisovans,

02:08who we mainly know about from their DNA, from a site in Siberia.

02:14So, having it as a member of that lineage suggests that that lineage goes back at least a million years,

02:20which is the age of this fossil.

02:22Does that mean we're not closer, but we're further away from discovering, really,

02:26where human beings like you and me really come from?

02:28Well, not really.

02:31We think this helps to sort that out, because our lineage goes back as well to that time.

02:36So, when this lineage of this fossil from Yung Shani existed a million years ago,

02:43already, in our analyses, the ancestors of Homo sapiens, our species, of the Neanderthals,

02:50of another species called Homo heidobagensis,

02:53those other branches had already branched off from the lineage of Dragoman and Yung Shani.

03:00And so, that pushes back our own species' origin, our own lineage' origin,

03:04to beyond a million years, and that of the Neanderthals as well.

03:08Some genetic data suggested we only split from Neanderthals maybe half a million years ago.

03:14Our analyses will suggest it's double that age.

03:17Wow.

03:18Well, just quickly, because it sounds like there is a lot more to learn.

03:22What happens next?

03:25Well, yes, so, obviously, there should be early representatives of all of these lineages

03:29a million years ago, if we're correct.

03:31Then, maybe they're out there, or maybe we've still got to discover them.

03:35So, yes, we have a lot more to do in comparative data to look at other fossils,

03:39but also more information from this fossil and from the Dragoman fossil.

03:43So, there's lots of elements, for example, details of the shape of the brain, the ear bones.

03:50There's lots of other details we can add to these studies,

03:53maybe eventually even some genetic data in the form of fossil proteins, which will also help us.

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