Million-year-old skull rewrites human evolution, say scientists

A million-worldly found in China suggests that our species, Homo sapiens, began to appear at least half a million years earlier than we thought, the researchers say in a new study.

It also shows that we coexisted with other related species, including Neanderthals, much longer than we believed, they say.

Scientists argue that our analysis “completely changes” our understanding of human evolution, and, if it is correct, this, of course, rewrites the key early chapter in our history.

But other experts in the field where disagreements about our appearance on the planet are common, they say that the conclusions of the new study are believable, but far from sure.

The detection published in the leading scientific science of Scientific Journal shocked the research group, which included scientists from the University in China and the Museum of the Natural History of Great Britain.

“From the very beginning, when we got the result, we thought it was incredible. How can it be so deep in the past? ” Professor Sidzhun said from the University of Fudan, who led the analysis.

“But we checked it again and again to check all the models, use all methods, and now we are sure of the result, and we are actually very excited.”

When scientists discovered the skull called Yunxian 2, they suggested that it belonged to our previously ancestor, homo erectus, the first large brain people. This is because it dates about a million years, long before more advanced people have appeared.

Homo Erectus ultimately developed and began to diverge 600,000 years ago in Neanderthals and our species – Homo sapiens.

But the new Yunxian 2 analysis, which was considered by experts independent of the research group, suggests that this is not Homo Erectus.

Currently, it is considered an early version of Homo Longi, a kind of kind at similar levels of development to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Genetic data indicate that it existed next to them, therefore, if Yunsin 2 passed the ground a million years ago, they say that scientists, the early versions of the Neanderthal and our own appearance, probably, too.

According to Professor Chris Stringer from the Museum of Natural History, a co -authentic research, this amazing analysis significantly shifted the evolution schedule of people with big brains, at least half a million years old.

He said that, most likely, somewhere on our planet there will be a million years.

There are two ways to determine the types of an early person and train when he walked on the ground – analyzing the shape of the skull and his genetic data. In the case of Yunxian 2, both methods were used, and each came to the same conclusion.

But other researchers, such as Dr. Ailvin Scully, evolutionary geneticist at the University of Cambridge, say that in both methods there are significant uncertainty.

“You need to be especially preliminary regarding the assessment of the time, because it is very difficult to make them, regardless of what evidence you look at, whether it is genetic or fossil evidence,” he said.

“Even with the largest number of genetic data, it is very difficult to place the time when these populations could coexist for 100,000 years or even more.”

He added that although the conclusions of Professor Nor and Stringer were believable, they were far from defined, and that in order to be confident.

“This picture is still quite unclear for us, therefore, if the conclusions of this study are supported by other analyzes, ideally from some genetic data, then I think that we will begin more and more confident in this,” he said to BBC News.

The earliest well -known evidence of the early homes in Africa is 300,000 years ago, so it is tempting to conclude that our appearance could develop primarily in Asia.

But there is not enough evidence to be confident, at this stage, according to Professor Stringer, because in Africa and Europe there are human fossils, which also have a million years that must be included in the analysis.

“There are some genetic evidence that indicate an even earlier appearance of our species that could recomb with our line, but this has not yet been proven,” he said to BBC News.

An earlier temporary scale means that three types of people coexisted on the planet for about 800,000 years, much longer than previously expected, possibly interacting and inter -combat during this time.

The earlier appearance also helps to understand dozens of human fossils, starting from 800,000 years ago and 100,000 years ago, when scientists are difficult to classify and find their place in human family tree, the called “confusing in the middle”.

But the earlier appearance of Homo sapiens, Homo Longi and Neanderthals carefully solves the problem. This means that now it is possible to group fossils with difficulty in the classification as subgroups belonging to one of the “big three”, or their more primitive ancestors, Asian homo-erect and Heidelbergensis, according to the professor.

“Human evolution is like a tree,” he said. “This tree included several branches, and there were three main branches that are closely connected, and they can have some interconnected crossing with each other, and they coexisted for almost 1 million years. So this is an incredible result. ”

The skull was excavated with two others from the province of Khubey. But they were damaged and crushed, which is one of the reasons why Yunsin 2 was incorrectly painted as an erect.

To restore them to their original shape, the team of Professor Nick scanned the skull and insincere them using computer modeling methods, and then printed replicas on a 3D printer.

Seeing them, because they really allowed scientists to advertise them as a separate – a more advanced group of a person.