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Neanderman? Skulls found in China may be from previously unknown species

Opty

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Given that they've only found fragments for one or two of these skulls, I doubt anything definitive can be said yet (these skulls could just as easily be from a primate(s) that had genetic disorder-like issues), but it is really interesting from an evolutionary standpoint.

Perhaps we have more cousins than we thought we did. Our family tree might be getting bigger.

The large brains of these archaic humans ruled out Homo erectus and other known hominid species, the scientists wrote. The researchers were vague about what they thought the species might be, describing them only as archaic humans. But Wu told Science Magazine that the fossils could represent “a kind of unknown or new ar*chaic human that survived on in East Asia to 100,000 years ago.”
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WP article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-possibly-new-species/?utm_term=.edb1b3feb3f0

Original study: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6328/969
 

King Neptune

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I didn't find anything especially new or different in that article, but there were only two crania, and both were incomplete. Neanderthal characteristics are found in the genomes of people from all areas, except sub-Saharan Africa, so there had to be people with Neanderthal characteristics moving around. It makes me want to get the time machine running, so I'lll be able to find out whether they were natives, or where they came from, and if they had wandered in, then why did they wander? Did they have itchy feet or were they outcasts? There are many questions, and we probably will never answer them.
 

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They are looking to see if they can find some DNA in the skulls. If they do, we may soon know how close they are to us.
 
Opty

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King Neptune said:
I didn't find anything especially new or different in that article, but there were only two crania, and both were incomplete. Neanderthal characteristics are found in the genomes of people from all areas, except sub-Saharan Africa, so there had to be people with Neanderthal characteristics moving around. It makes me want to get the time machine running, so I'lll be able to find out whether they were natives, or where they came from, and if they had wandered in, then why did they wander? Did they have itchy feet or were they outcasts? There are many questions, and we probably will never answer them.
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From the news article (rather than the actual study):

Which makes a pair of newly described skulls something of a wonder. The partial skulls have features up to this time unseen in the hominid fossil record, sharing both human and Neanderthal characteristics.

“It is a very exciting discovery,” as Katerina Harvati, an expert in Neanderthal evolution at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who was not involved with the research, told The Washington Post. “Especially because the human fossil record from East Asia has been not only fragmentary but also difficult to date.”
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If you failed to find anything "new" from a study that is touting having made a new discovery ("features up to this time unseen") and was literally just published yesterday, then you are either clairvoyant or your criteria for what you consider to be "new" is absurdly higher than most other people's.
 
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King Neptune

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Opty said:
From the news article (rather than the actual study):



If you failed to find anything "new" from a study that is touting having made a new discovery ("features up to this time unseen") and was literally just published yesterday, then you are either clairvoyant or your criteria for what you consider to be "new" is absurdly higher than most other people's.
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They found two partial crania; that's all. The variation among humans is great, so it is not surprising to find an oddity, but there were only two. If they had found dozens, then it might be notable.
 

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The hominid fossil record is extremely sparse, for the most obvious of reasons: Hominids (including us) are smart, and good at avoiding geological situations in which they are likely to be fossilized. There's undoubtedly a lot of undiscovered stuff out there that may complicate the record of the origin of Homo sapiens.

caw
 
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