A skull, as old as 300,000-years, discovered in China! Know about the surreal experience

A skull as old as 300,000 years is found in China. The strange aspect of this skull is that it is not alike another premodern homo sapiens fossil discovered. Interestingly, this strangeness points towards a possibly novel branch in the human family tree, as per new research.

It was on July 31 when the research was published in the Journal of Human Evolution. 

What did the study find?

A research team discovered that HLD 6, the mandible is actually rather "unexpected" as it fails to fit into any of the taxonomic groups existing so far.

A lot of Pleistocene hominin fossils found in China are actually quite challenging to classify. Moreover, these were considered to be anomalies previously, as per the study. 

This discovery, however, along with the other studies, is gradually altering what people already are aware of the evolutionary pattern in the Middle Pleistocene.

Comparative study

The HLD 6 mandible has features of both Pleistocene hominins and modern humans. If one talks about the shape, then the HLD 6 mandible has a similar shape to that of the Homo sapiens mandible. The modern human species is an evolved version of the Homo erectus, called the Denisovans. The HLD 6, just like the Denisovans, does not seem to have a chin.

Author of the study and the director of the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH), Spain, Maria Martinon-Torres expressed that “HLD6 does not present a true chin but has some weakly expressed traits that seem to anticipate this typically H. sapiens feature.”

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