Ancient skull found in China is from 'third kind of human'
A skull unearthed in East China might indicate that there is another branch to the human family tree, scientists have revealed.
The skull has distinctive features that mean it's not exactly part of the lineage of Neanderthals or Denisovans (another ancient human) or our own.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences at Xi'an Jiaotong University analysed a jawbone from a hominin from 300,000 years ago.
The fossil was found in 2019 at a site in Hualongdong and labelled HLD 6.
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The scientists write: "The combination of both archaic and modern human features identified in the HLD 6 mandible is unexpected, given its late Middle Pleistocene age.
"This mosaic pattern has never been recorded in late Middle Pleistocene hominin fossil assemblages in East Asia."
The researchers conducted a morphological and a geometric assessment, with the initial focus on the jawbone, and found unique features including a bend and a lack of chin.
They suggested that this could mean that it was more closely related to older species.
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Much of the face is similar to the modern human lineage, which split off from homo erectus 750,000 years ago, but the lack of a chin is more like another ancient, extinct human species, the Denisovans, who split from Neanderthals 750,000 years ago.
This could mean the skull is another lineage entirely, a link between two branches of modern humans, ScienceAlert reported.
The researchers said that the remains could be a hybrid of a modern human and an ancient hominid – and it could mean that 'modern' human traits began to appear 300,000 years ago.
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