Ancient skull pushes back our origins by 400,000 years

It’s time to rewrite the family tree, as scientists have revealed that our species is even older than we thought.  

Previous studies have proved that we evolved in Africa before finally conquering the world – getting the better of some other rival human species on our way. 

However, scientists now say we’ve been getting the date of own origins totally wrong.

In a new paper, the experts that claim Homo sapiens began to emerge over one million years ago.

Until now, it’s been commonly believed that we split from our closest human relatives 600,000 years ago.  

So the findings, based on a new analysis of a rare Chinese skull fossil, pushes back our species’ origins by some 400,000 years. 

Study author Chris Stringer, an anthropologist the National History Museum, said the ‘landmark’ findings offer an important window into our evolutionary past. 

‘Fossils like this one just how much we still have to learn about our origins,’ he said.

The focus of this study is Yunxian 2, a fossilised cranium found badly crushed by excavators in Hubei, China back in 1990. 

Dating back one million years ago, the heavily deformed skull was once thought to belong to an adult male member of the species Homo erectus.

Appearing about about two million years ago, Homo erectus was a direct ancestor of modern humans and the first species to walk fully upright. As a result, it’s thought of as the first human species to have left Africa. 

Using CT scanning, light imaging and virtual reconstruction techniques, the team made a physical model of what the skull would look like had it not been squashed.

The physical model also incorporated a few small anatomical elements from Yunxian 1, another fossil found at the site in 1989, also badly crushed. 

Once completed, the model was compared it to 104 other fossil specimens and similar high-quality replicas. 

Their findings show Yunxian 2 does display some primitive traits similar to Homo erectus, such as a large, squat braincase, a strong brow ridge, and a more projecting lower face. 

However, derived features in the face and rear of the braincase, as well as a larger brain capacity, are closer to later species such as Homo longi (‘Dragon Man’) and Homo sapiens. 

Based on their analyses, Yunxian 2 is not a Homo erectus at all, but an early member of the lineage that includes Homo longi and several other Chinese fossils.

Homo longi is strongly linked with the Denisovans, another extinct group of archaic humans known primarily from fossil finds in Siberia and Tibet.

Crucially, this lineage originated more than one million years ago, according to Professor Stringer, who worked alongside experts at Fudan University in Shanghai and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. 

‘Our research reveals that Yunxian 2 is not Homo erectus, but an early member of the longi clade and linked to the Denisovans,’ he said. 

‘This changes a lot of thinking because it suggests that by one million years ago, our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed.’ 

Despite their findings, the researchers are reluctant to describe Yunxian 2 as belonging to the Homo longi, at least for the moment.

Analysis of a third Yunxian skull found in 2022 (‘Yunxian 3’) will act as ‘an important test’ of the new reconstruction and hopefully make it conclusive. 

‘We will now be extending our analyses to include further sources of data and other fossils, which will be critical for refining this picture,’ Professor Stringer added.  

The team’s new findings, published today in the journal Science, paint a ‘radically different’ picture of human evolution. 

According to the scientists, in the last 800,000 years, most large-brained humans can be traced to just five major branches – Asian erectus, heidelbergensis, longi, sapiens, and neanderthalensis.

The research reveals that these groups were already splitting from one another more than a million years ago – deeper in time than we previously thought.

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa but migrated out of the continent 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, reaching Europe and Asia. 

There, we found and mated with the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), our closest ancient human relative, also extinct. 

Not a lot is known about the Denisovans, the population of early humans who lived in Asia at least 80,000 years ago and were also distantly related to Neanderthals. 

Denisovans also bred with humans around 50,000 years ago, likely in Asia, meaning the DNA of the early hominids survives today.