Scientists: “Man drags” newly discovered is the closest ancestor of homo sapiens

Kafka was found in the 1930 ' s in the Chinese town of Harbin in the province of Heilgiang, but was reportedly in a well for 85 years to be protected by the Japanese army.

Later, it was dug up, and in 2018, Yi Qiang, a professor at Hebei University in China, was handed over to him.

After our analysis, the origin of the bones from Harby is more about homo sapiens than Neanderthals. Specials from Harbin have more things in common with us than Neanderthals”, paleolanthropologist Chris Stinger of the London Natural History Museum told France Press.

If they are seen as a particular species, then this is our sister's species, the nearest region”, the British scientist said.

The find skull is at least 146,000 years old and dates from the Middle Pleistocen, and its results have been published in three letters in the magazine Innovation.

The size of the brain inside the skull may have been similar to that of the modern man, but the eyes were deeper and the teeth were larger, the thicker eyebrows, and the broader mouth.

The name is a derivative of Long Jiang, meaning “Dragon River”.

Scientists believe the skull bones belong to a man about 50 years old who lived in a forested and flooded area.

These people were hunters and collectors living out of the environment,” said Stinger. “Considering today's winter temperatures at Harby, they seem to have weathered the cold greater than the Neanderthals. ”

According to the location of the skull's finding and the estimated size of the husband, the research team believes homolong adapted well to difficult living conditions and was able to move through Asia.

Scientists first studied the outer structure of the skull, using more than 600 Morfological features and then carried out millions of simulations using a computer model to form an aphyxi tree with other fossils.

This suggests that Harby and some other fossils from China form the third birthplace of human species, along with Neanderthals and homo sapiens,” explained Stringer.

If homo sapiens had reached East Asia at a time when homolong was present, an intersection could have occurred, but this has not been fully tested.

Because of the lack of archaeological materials, many questions remain about their cultural and technological level, however, the discovery of the skull can change our understanding of human evolution, writes France Presse.

A third human line has been found in East Asia that has its evolutionary history, and results show how important the region was for human evolution”, Stringer concluded.