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Skull found in China may belong to a 'Dragon Man' that lived one million years ago
A mysterious ancient human-like skull found in China may have been the love child of two species, according to researchers.
They believe the 900,000-year-old individual was a hybrid - part us, Homo sapien, and part Homo longi, a long-lost species known as the 'Dragon Man'.
The skull, named 'the Yunxian Man', after the Yunyang District of Hubei province were discovered in 2022, baffled archaeologists due to its strange shape and features.
The new study recreated a full 3D model of the skull, revealing it had facial bones of a human but a flattened cranium, boxed eyes and thicker brow bone of Homo longi.
It concluded, based on the preliminary findings, that the person dubbed 'the Yunxian Man', after lineage our 'long-lost sister lineage.'
This partial skull fossil, which was damaged with age, was reconstructed to its full glory using 3D models. It led researchers to believe this could be one of the last common ancestors between Dragon Men and humans.
The Dragon Man, scientifically named Homo longi, had a thick upper brow bone, and big, boxy eye sockets. An illustrator depicted that likeliness here.
'It is reasonable to conclude that Yunxian is morphologically and chronologically close to the last common ancestor of the lineages of H. sapiens and Dragon Man,' the authors wrote in the study published as a pre-print on the research site BioRxiv.
The skull was one of three found in China over the past 50 years that scientists were initially baffled by - unable to identify their origins.
It might seem like simple science to determine what bone fits to what species, but scientists have yet to agree just how many human-like species there were in our recent archeological history, Anna Goldfield an archaeologist at Boston University, wrote for Sapiens.org.
It's widely accepted that there were two archaic human species - Neanderthals and Denisovans - which roamed the Earth as distinct groups until about 30,000 years ago - and had distinct features.
But the Yunxian man skull was difficult to put into a single category.
Based on its physical characteristics and location, researchers had thought it could be a member of the Denisovan family that originated in Asia about 500,000 years ago.
While the Yunxian man had an elongated skull, similar to Denisovans, it also had a distinct, boxy eyes that set it apart.
However, researchers have speculated that the 'Dragon Man' lineage could include Denisovans since the groups lived on Earth around the same time.
After analyzing the new skull, the researchers determined its traits were similar to those found in early humans and Dragon Men, meaning that it was likely an offspring of both.
The Homo longi had large, blocky eye sockets, molars that are much larger than ours, a thick brow bone and a similar brain size to humans, Professor Goldfield said.
And those features were observed in the Yunxian man skull.
'The reconstructed Yunxian 2 suggest that it is an early member of the Asian 'Dragon Man' lineage, which probably includes the Denisovans, and is the sister group of the Homo sapiens lineage,' the authors wrote.
'Both the H. sapiens and Dragon Man lineages had deep roots extending beyond the Middle Pleistocene, and the basal position of the Yunxian fossil cranium suggests it represents a population lying close to the last common ancestor of the two lineages.'
This paper has yet to be reviewed by other scientists, but previous research on Dragon Men by lead author, paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni has been published in journals like The Innovation.
Modern humans became their own species, called Homo sapiens, some one million years ago. They started in Africa, but soon spread around the world.
The researchers used 3D modelling to reconstruct the skull, since it had been damaged and flattened.
Neanderthals originated in Europe and Asia about 400,000 years ago.
Their skulls were long, they had a thick ridge above their eyes and they had a wider, bigger nose than most modern Homo sapiens.
They also had a weaker, less prominent chin, according to the NHM.
Denisovans also originated in Asia as their only fossils have been found in Siberia and China - but researchers believe they probably roamed the whole Asian continent, according to The Australian Museum.
Relatively little is known about this class of humans, since researchers have only ever found 11 partial Denisovan fossils.
Even with that limited selection, scientists determined Denisovan jaws were much more distinct than Neanderthals. Their teeth were much bigger and their pelvis were much wider than modern humans, but their fingers were similar to ours.
Though each of these species is unique, they were genetically similar enough to be able to mate - like how horses and donkeys can mate to form a mule.
Mate they did. You can find some humans today who have one to four percent Neanderthal DNA and four to six percent Denisovan DNA, according to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.