Dragon Man: May be a new species of humanity

Researchers find ‘new type of early human’ near Israel’s Ramla

Israeli scientists say the remains could not be matched to any known species from the Homo genus.
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An Israeli scientist holds two pieces of fossilised bone of a previously unknown kind of early human [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/25/researchers-find-new-type-of-early-human-near-israels-ramla


https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57586315

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1424
 

https://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/middle/china/chang-penghu-1-mandible-2015.html

this mandible was very similar to the Baishyia mandible in Tibet, whose DNA identified it as Denisovans
looks like Denisovans where all over China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penghu_1

In 2019 Chen Fahu along with a group of co-authors presented a piece suspecting the Penghu 1 mandible to be a member of the hominid group Denisovans.[8] This conclusion has been supported through its comparison with the Denisovan Xiahe mandible. The Xiahe mandible was discovered on the Tibetian Plateau and is dated to be about 160,000 years old. The Xiahe specimen has similar dental morphology compared to Penghu 1. They share 4 distinct characteristics: their M2's are close in mesiodistal width, they both show the agenesis of the M3 molar, they have a similar unique M2 root structure which relates to modern Asian populations, and the P3 displays Tomes' root, which is rarely found in other fossil hominins.[8]
 
The Harbin cranium could be the first Denisovan skull. This mysterious group of extinct humans was first identified a decade ago from DNA in a finger bone found in the Denisova cave in Siberia, Russia. Subsequently, a jawbone, known as the Xiahe mandible, was discovered in Tibet. Unfortunately, Ji et al. (2021) did not extract DNA from the Harbin cranium and they only presented craniometric data to support their thesis. Without doing proper DNA analysis, the real identity of the Harbin cranium cannot be confirmed.

Prof Marta Mirazon Lahr, from the University of Cambridge, believes that Dragon Man was a Denisovan. "The Denisovans are this fascinating mystery population from the past. There is a suggestion (from DNA evidence) that the jawbone found in the Tibetan Plateau might be a Denisovan," she said. "And now because the jawbone from Tibet and Dragon Man look like each other - now we might actually have the first face of the Denisovan."


The Harbin cranium is massive in size, larger than all other known-archaic humans.1 The endocranial capacity is estimated as ∼1,420 ml, falling in the range of H. sapiens and Neanderthals, and larger than other Homo species such as H. erectus, H. naledi, H. floresiensis, and even some H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis.

There are very small angular tori inferiorly on the parietals, proportionally much smaller than those in H. erectus. The occipital has a relatively rounded lateral profile, presenting a less flexed form than that typical of H. erectus. The occipital torus is almost absent, much weaker than in H. erectus. The face is relatively low, and lacks the anterior projection typical of H. erectus. Postorbital constriction is also proportionally shallower than in most members of H. erectus. The tympanic bone of the Harbin cranium is flat and thin, and lacks the robusticity typical of H. erectus.

Compared with Neanderthals, the Harbin cranium also has a massive and curved supraorbital torus, with strong lateral thickness. Postorbital constriction of the Harbin cranium is proportionally deeper than those of Neanderthals. The occipital surface lacks both a “chignon” and a centrally developed suprainiac fossa typical of Neanderthals. The zygomaxillary angle is somewhat larger than in Neanderthals and approaches that of H. sapiens, indicating a less medial projection of the midface. The zygomaxillary area is flattened and without maxillary inflation. The single molar tooth is huge by Neanderthal standards.

https://www.cell.com/the-innovation/fulltext/S2666-6758(21)00057-6
 
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[FONT=&quot][COLOR=var(--primary-text)]Finally, have the Denisovans been found?

"The most promising fossil yet found that could be evidence of Denisovans came from a cave in Tibet: a massive jaw with two stout molars, dating back at least 160,000 years. In 2019, scientists isolated proteins from the jaw, and their molecular makeup suggests they belonged to a Denisovan, rather than a modern human or Neanderthal."

"Other experts thought the similarity between the Tibetan jaw, with the Denisovan-like proteins, and the skull from Harbin pointed to Dragon Man’s real identity."

“When I first saw the picture of the fossil I thought, now we finally know what Denisovans looked like,” said Philipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Karen Baab, a paleoanthropologist at Midwestern University in Arizona, agreed: “Harbin is better understood as a Denisovan.”

"An assortment of clues point that way. The tooth on Dragon Man’s upper jaw has the same massive shape as the one on the Denisovan jaw found in Tibet, for example. Both lack a third molar. Dragon Man also lived in Asia at the same time that Denisovan DNA tells us that they were in the same place."




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Researchers find ‘new type of early human’ near Israel’s Ramla

Israeli scientists say the remains could not be matched to any known species from the Homo genus.
svg%3E
2021-06-24T184102Z_966182269_RC2B6O9MKJ4J_RTRMADP_3_ISRAEL-ARCHAEOLOGY.jpg
An Israeli scientist holds two pieces of fossilised bone of a previously unknown kind of early human [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/25/researchers-find-new-type-of-early-human-near-israels-ramla


https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57586315

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1424

could it be a crossbread of modern humans & neanderthals?
 
could it be a crossbread of modern humans & neanderthals?

Or ancestral to later neanderthals? The skull was described as quite unlike modern homo sapiens.
 
Or ancestral to later neanderthals? The skull was described as quite unlike modern homo sapiens.

neither was it Neanderthal

and some Neanderthals in Europe and in the Altaï mountains are dated as old as this skull

I don't understand the suggestion of this anthropologist

The common ancestor of both Neanderthals and Denisovan is more than 600.000 years old, and they split 475.000 years ago
 
A new type of Human species is getting found every 10 months.
 
I am guessing, based on its location, age, and also dental similarity to Xiahe mandible, it's most likely a Denisovan skull.
 
How do we know it's not a Denisovan?
 

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