Ancient Chinese archaeologists announced this week that they had discovered the skull of a new human race named Dragon Man.
According to Chinese experts, this new human race is the closest race to current humans. Among the hominin races discovered to date, Neanderthals and Homo erectus are the closest hominin relatives to humans.
Scientists have named the human race found now as Dragon Man. This human race is said to have lived in East Asia 146,000 years ago.
This head was not actually discovered until now. It was unearthed in 1933 in northeastern China’s Harbin region. But at that time, it did not receive the interest of scholars and was forgotten.
The skull findings were published in the research journal Innovation.
This research is not done by Chinese scholars alone. Internationally famous archaeologists are included. One of the scholars involved in the research is Professor Chris Stringer, a prominent scholar at the London Natural History Museum. He is a leading expert on human evolution.
“This discovery is the most important of all fossil discoveries of hominids that lived millions of years ago,” he said.
“The human race now found is not a pre-human interval on the path of human evolution. This is a separate hominin race that is different from humans. This is a race that has evolved independently from a human ancestor. Now I’m not allowed to be a person, and I’ve gone to the shallows.” Professor Stringer continued.
Scientists believe that the discovery may rewrite the history of human evolution. This race is considered to be even closer to humans than Neanderthals.
Scientists have now named the new race Homo longi. The Chinese word long means dragon. In Burmese, it’s Dragon Man.
“We have discovered the missing sister of our humanity,” said Professor Xijun Ni of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The skull found now is relatively large compared to the skulls of other similar races. This head is roughly the same size as our current human skull.
Dragon Man has square eyes. In addition, the mouth is wide, and the teeth are large. Another researcher, Prof. Qiang Ji from Hebei GEO University, said that this head is one of the most complete skulls of early hominins ever found.
“In this head, both the characteristics of early hominins and Modern human characteristics are mixed. This is a significant difference from other similar species,” added Prof. Kinji.
Experts say that the structure of this Dragon Man is full of energy, and the features are rough. But this head was removed from the place where he was found, so his lifestyle cannot be determined. This means that of the stone weapons currently associated with this head, No living structures or cultural artifacts have been discovered.
This head was discovered by a construction worker in 1933. At that time, it was discovered by a worker who was building a bridge over the Songhua River in the Harbin region of Helongjin Province. The Songhua River in English means “Black Dragon”. That’s why they call him Dragon Man.
At that time, Harbin was under Japanese occupation. A construction worker who found it out of the hands of the Japanese smuggled out the skull and took it home. He kept it at home for 80 years and only told his family about it when he was about to die. That’s why scholars are now allowed to study.
Like this Dragon Man, other human fossils that are difficult to separate species have been discovered in China. Among scholars, these fossils are of the human race (Homo sapiens). Are Neanderthals and Denisovan primitive fossils of the same race? There is still a dispute among scholars about whether they are a separate human race.
Another hominin race, the Denisovan tribe, was discovered from the DNA of a fossil that lived between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago.
Prof. Martin Mirazon, an anthropologist at Cambridge University in England, believes that the dragon man found now is actually a member of the Denisovan human race.
“Denisovan DNA studies show that the jawbone of the fossil found in Tibet is most likely Denisovan. The dragon man is quite similar to the Tibetan man in the shape of his jaw. I think this is the first face of the Denisovan race,” he continued.
A group of scholars who recently discovered a homogenous race in Israel believe that the Dragon Man is descended from early humans who migrated from the Levant Region, which is the region surrounding Israel.
But Chinese scholars believe that the skull found is unique to the human race.
“Due to this discovery, there will be great controversy among scholars. There will be arguments. There will be many scholars who do not accept this finding. But that’s just science. It’s because of this debate that science advances, doesn’t it?” Professor Zijovni