Latest news with #paleoanthropology
Daily Mail
07-07-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Revealed: The most scientifically accurate faces of ancient human species – including one known as ‘The Hobbit'
Homo sapiens might have been the dominant species on the planet for millennia, but it wasn't always that way. When the first Homo sapiens emerged around 300,000 years ago, our ancestors were just one of six human species on the planet. Now, scientists have revealed the most scientifically accurate reconstructions of what those ancient humans would have looked like. This includes the face of an elusive ancient species known as 'The Hobbit'. As part of the upcoming BBC documentary, 'Human', scientists have combined cutting-edge digital modelling techniques with the latest fossil evidence. The result is our best look at Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, Neanderthals, and the very earliest members of Homo sapiens ever discovered. Paleoanthropologist and presenter of the show Ella Al-Shamahi says: 'These are the most scientifically accurate collection of hyper-real 3D models of human species ever put on TV that we know of. Human begins on Monday 14 July, 9 pm, on BBC Two and all five episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from this date. Homo erectus Home erectus was the first human species to exclusively walk upright on two legs like humans do today. Anthropologists believe they lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago. They lived in an area which initially covered Africa but later spread across large parts of Asia and even to the edges of Europe. This was the first time a hominin, a primate closely related to humans, had ventured outside of Africa. It would be a further two million years before Homo sapiens would be able to replicate this daring migration. They were taller than previous hominins, with long legs that made them efficient walkers. Their upright posture also freed up the use of their hands, which allowed big-brained Homo erectus to develop tools and become the first hominin to master fire. Home erectus (pictured) was the first human species to exclusively walk upright on two legs like humans do today. Anthropologists believe they lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago Our ancient human relatives Homo erectus This species lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago. They were the first human species to walk upright the entire time. Homo floresiensis A tiny species which lived between 700,000 and 50,000 years ago. Due to insular dwarfism, Homo floresiensis were only three and half feet tall. Homo neanderthalensis Lived 430,000 and 40,000 years ago and overlapped with modern humans. Otherwise known as Neanderthals, these are our closest human relatives. Physically, they were somewhat similar to modern-day humans but a little shorter, around five feet tall on average. They had similar head sizes compared to a modern human, but had flatter faces and a more prominent brow ridge. Homo floresiensis This species was found on the island of Flores, Indonesia and lived between 700,000 and 50,000 years ago. Nicknamed 'The Hobbit' after J.R.R Tolkien's fictional creatures, Homo floresiensis was exceptionally small compared to modern humans. The average homo floresiensis stands at just three and a half feet tall (one metre), with very long legs compared to their body size. Much like Tolkien's Hobbits, Homo floresiensis also had large, flat feet. They also had very small skulls, with brains about one-third the size of modern humans - similar to that of a chimpanzee. In addition to their smaller heads, Homo floresiensis likely had a more pronounced brow and no prominent chin. Scientists believe that Homo floresiensis became so small due to an effect called insular dwarfism. This reflects the fact that large animals on islands evolve to become smaller to deal with limited resources. At the same time, smaller animals typically become larger due to a lack of predators. This meant Homo floresiensis shared its island with elephants that were the size of cows, giant brown rats and meat-eating storks which stood up to two metres tall. Homo neanderthalensis More commonly known as the Neanderthal, Homo neanderthalensis are our closest human relatives. This species lived across a huge swathe of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe between 430,000 and 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals were physiologically adapted to colder weather, with wide noses and nostrils adapted for breathing cold, dry air. They had large front teeth, which they used as a 'third hand' while preparing food, but did not have a pronounced chin like a modern human. Their bodies were stocky and well-muscled, with longer arms and shorter legs than modern humans. Adults stood about five feet (1.5 metres) tall but could weigh between 64 and 82kg. Scientists think their proportions would have minimised their surface area to help preserve body heat during Earth's colder periods. Neanderthals also overlapped with Homo sapiens for thousands of years and the two species often mingled and interbred. Every current human outside of Africa has some Neanderthal DNA, with some people getting up to four per cent of their genes from this ancient species. Homo sapiens The first Homo sapiens (pictured) were found in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, North Africa, and scientists think they date back to around 300,000 years ago. These ancient Homo sapiens had slightly more pronounced brows and elongated heads This reconstruction shows the oldest known Homo sapiens, the species of all modern humans. These fossils come from a place called Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, North Africa, and scientists think they date back to around 300,000 years ago. This puts the emergences of Homo sapiens some 100,000 years earlier than scientists had previously thought. Although they were part of the same species, these very early Homo sapiens had a few minor differences to modern humans. Most obviously, these individuals had heavier brows and elongated skulls. Some scientists see this as evidence of earlier humans evolving into the very first Homo sapiens. After emerging in Africa, a small group of around 10,000 Homo sapiens crossed into Europe around 60,000 years ago and managed to establish a population. Everyone outside of Africa is descended from those first few thousand humans, which is why Africa has a much higher level of genetic diversity. A close relative of modern humans, Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago The Neanderthals were a close human ancestor that mysteriously died out around 40,000 years ago. The species lived in Africa with early humans for millennia before moving across to Europe around 300,000 years ago. They were later joined by humans, who entered Eurasia around 48,000 years ago. These were the original 'cavemen', historically thought to be dim-witted and brutish compared to modern humans. In recent years though, and especially over the last decade, it has become increasingly apparent we've been selling Neanderthals short. A growing body of evidence points to a more sophisticated and multi-talented kind of 'caveman' than anyone thought possible. It now seems likely that Neanderthals had told, buried their dead, painted and even interbred with humans. They used body art such as pigments and beads, and they were the very first artists, with Neanderthal cave art (and symbolism) in Spain apparently predating the earliest modern human art by some 20,000 years. They are thought to have hunted on land and done some fishing. However, they went extinct around 40,000 years ago following the success of Homo sapiens in Europe.
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Science recap: This week's discoveries include new clues from the fossil skull of a mysterious human species
Editor's note: A version of this story appeared in CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. Tens of thousands of years ago, our species — Homo sapiens — mingled and interbred with other prehistoric humans: our distant cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Hundreds of Neanderthal fossils give us a good idea of their appearance, lives and relationships, but so little is known about Denisovans that they still don't have an official scientific name. Evidence of their existence has surfaced in faint traces, mapped by DNA markers that lurk in our own genetic makeup and confirmed by only a few fossil fragments. This week, however, a 146,000-year-old skull dredged out of a well in China in 2018 may just be a key missing piece to this cryptic evolutionary puzzle. The nearly complete skull did not match any previously known species of prehistoric human. But two new studies — which researchers say are among the biggest paleoanthropology papers of the year — detail how scientists were able to extract genetic material from the fossil and help unravel this biological mystery. The DNA sample taken from 'Dragon Man,' as the specimen is called, revealed that he was in fact related to Denisovans, early humans who are thought to have lived between roughly 500,000 and 30,000 years ago. The finding could be monumental, helping to paint a fuller picture of a time when our own species coexisted with other prehistoric humans. Astronomers have long grappled with the quandary of 'dark matter,' but plenty of enigmas surround regular matter as well. The proton-and-neutron-based atoms that we're familiar with are called baryonic matter. And this material is strewn between galaxies like intergalactic fog, making it extremely difficult to measure. Perhaps, that is, until now. A new study explains how scientists were able to observe the baryonic matter using the flashing of fast radio bursts. In a rare encounter, scientists have captured the first-ever footage of an elusive 3-foot-long squid alive in its deep-sea habitat. Fruit, flowers, birds and musical instruments decorated the walls of a luxury villa — part of a site the excavation team dubbed the 'Beverly Hills' of Roman Britain — before the building was razed roughly 1,800 years ago. The frescoes were painstakingly pieced together by experts from the Museum of London Archaeology. Han Li, senior building material specialist at MOLA, described the effort as a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity. Romans invaded modern-day Britain in AD 43 and established Londinium, the precursor to modern London. The occupation lasted for almost 400 years. Under the life-affirming glow of the sun, methane is a dangerous gas to be avoided. A heat-trapping chemical pollutant in Earth's atmosphere, methane exacerbates the climate crisis. But within the planet's deep recesses — thousands of feet below the ocean's surface off the US West Coast — the gas can be transformed into a nutritious meal. At least for spiders. Scientists say they've discovered three previously unknown species of sea spider living around methane seeps. In these marine habitats where sunlight can't reach, gas escapes through cracks in the seafloor and feeds bacteria that latch on to the spiders' exoskeletons. The bacteria convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat, according to a new study. The newfound Sericosura sea spiders may pass methane-fueled bacteria to their hatchlings as an easy source of food, the researchers suggest. Check out these other must-read science stories from the week: — A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test on Wednesday. Explore how this and other recent setbacks may affect the company's Mars ambitions. — A tiny brown moth in Australia migrates some 600 miles at night using the stars for navigation — something only humans and birds were known to do before. — A hunt for ghostly cosmic particles found anomalous signals coming from Antarctic ice. A new detector could help scientists explain what they are. — Researchers used DNA to reconstruct the face of a prehistoric woman who lived around 10,500 years ago in what's now Belgium, suggesting that skin color already varied considerably among different populations. Like what you've read? Oh, but there's more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland, Katie Hunt and Jackie Wattles. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.
CNN
21-06-2025
- Science
- CNN
Science recap: This week's discoveries include the fossilized skull of a mysterious, prehistoric human species
Tens of thousands of years ago, our species — Homo sapiens — mingled and interbred with other prehistoric humans: our distant cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Hundreds of Neanderthal fossils give us a good idea of their appearance, lives and relationships, but so little is known about Denisovans that they still don't have an official scientific name. Evidence of their existence has surfaced in faint traces, mapped by DNA markers that lurk in our own genetic makeup and confirmed by only a few fossil fragments. This week, however, a 146,000-year-old skull dredged out of a well in China in 2018 may just be a key missing piece to this cryptic evolutionary puzzle. A long time ago The nearly complete skull did not match any previously known species of prehistoric human. But two new studies — which researchers say are among the biggest paleoanthropology papers of the year — detail how scientists were able to extract genetic material from the fossil and help unravel this biological mystery. The DNA sample taken from 'Dragon Man,' as the specimen is called, revealed that he was in fact related to Denisovans, early humans who are thought to have lived between roughly 500,000 and 30,000 years ago. The finding could be monumental, helping to paint a fuller picture of a time when our own species coexisted with other prehistoric humans. Across the universe Astronomers have long grappled with the quandary of 'dark matter,' but plenty of enigmas surround regular matter as well. The proton-and-neutron-based atoms that we're familiar with are called baryonic matter. And this material is strewn between galaxies like intergalactic fog, making it extremely difficult to measure. Perhaps, that is, until now. A new study explains how scientists were able to observe the baryonic matter using the flashing of fast radio bursts. In a rare encounter, scientists have captured the first-ever footage of an elusive 3-foot-long squid alive in its deep-sea habitat. Unearthed Fruit, flowers, birds and musical instruments decorated the walls of a luxury villa — part of a site the excavation team dubbed the 'Beverly Hills' of Roman Britain — before the building was razed roughly 1,800 years ago. The frescoes were painstakingly pieced together by experts from the Museum of London Archaeology. Han Li, senior building material specialist at MOLA, described the effort as a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity. Romans invaded modern-day Britain in AD 43 and established Londinium, the precursor to modern London. The occupation lasted for almost 400 years. Curiosities Under the life-affirming glow of the sun, methane is a dangerous gas to be avoided. A heat-trapping chemical pollutant in Earth's atmosphere, methane exacerbates the climate crisis. But within the planet's deep recesses — thousands of feet below the ocean's surface off the US West Coast — the gas can be transformed into a nutritious meal. At least for spiders. Scientists say they've discovered three previously unknown species of sea spider living around methane seeps. In these marine habitats where sunlight can't reach, gas escapes through cracks in the seafloor and feeds bacteria that latch on to the spiders' exoskeletons. The bacteria convert carbon-rich methane and oxygen into sugars and fats the spiders can eat, according to a new study. The newfound Sericosura sea spiders may pass methane-fueled bacteria to their hatchlings as an easy source of food, the researchers suggest. Take note Check out these other must-read science stories from the week: — A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test on Wednesday. Explore how this and other recent setbacks may affect the company's Mars ambitions. — A tiny brown moth in Australia migrates some 600 miles at night using the stars for navigation — something only humans and birds were known to do before. — A hunt for ghostly cosmic particles found anomalous signals coming from Antarctic ice. A new detector could help scientists explain what they are. — Researchers used DNA to reconstruct the face of a prehistoric woman who lived around 10,500 years ago in what's now Belgium, suggesting that skin color already varied considerably among different populations.
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scientists SOLVE the mystery of the ‘Dragon Man': Ancient skull is first ever found from lost group of ancient humans that lived 217,000 years ago
It has baffled scientists since it was first discovered back in 2018. But the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull has finally been solved - as a new study reveals its true identity. Using DNA samples from plaque on the fossil's teeth, researchers have proven that the Dragon Man belonged to a lost group of ancient humans called the Denisovans. This species emerged around 217,000 years ago and passed on traces of DNA to modern humans before being lost to time. Denisovans were first discovered in 2010 when palaeontologists found a single finger of a girl who lived 66,000 years ago in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. But with only tiny fragments of bones to work with, palaeontologists couldn't learn anything more about our long-lost ancestors. Now, as the first confirmed Denisovan skull, the Dragon Man can provide scientists with an idead of what these ancient humans might have looked like. Dr Bence Viola, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto in Canada who was not involved in the study, told MailOnline: 'This is very exciting. Since their discovery in 2010, we knew that there is this other group of humans out there that our ancestors interacted with, but we had no idea how they looked except for some of their teeth.' Scientists have finally solved the mystery of the 'Dragon Man' skull which belonged to an ancient human who lived 146,000 years ago Scientists have now confirmed that the skull is that of a Denisovan (artist's impression), an ancient species of human which emerged around 217,000 years ago The Dragon Man skull is believed to have been found by a Chinese railway worker in 1933 while the country was under Japanese occupation. Not knowing what the fossilised skull could be but suspecting it might be important, the labourer hid the skull at the bottom of the well near Harbin City. He only revealed its location shortly before his death, and his surviving family found it in 2018 and donated it to the Hebei GEO University. Scientists dubbed the skull 'Homo Longi' or 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang near where it was found, which translates to black dragon river. The researchers knew that this skull didn't belong to either homo sapiens or Neanderthals but couldn't prove which other species it might be part of. In two papers, published in Cell and Science, researchers have now managed to gather enough DNA evidence to prove that Dragon Man was a Denisovan. Lead researcher Dr Qiaomei Fu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, had previously tried to extract DNA from bones in the skull but had not been successful. To find DNA, Dr Fu had to take tiny samples of the plaque that had built up on Dragon Man's teeth. Previously, the only traces of Denisovans were small fragments of bone like these pieces found in Siberia which meant scientists didn't know what they might have looked like Who is Dragon Man? Dragon Man is the nickname for a skull found near Harbin City, China in 2018. Known officially as the Harbin Cranium, scientists determined that the skull did not belong to any known human ancestor species. Scientists gave it the titled Homo longi, meaning 'Dragon Man' after the Heilongjiang, or black dragon river, near where it was found. Scientists suspected that Dragon Man might have been a member of the Denisovan species of humans but could not confirm this. That was because the bones are so old that most traces of DNA have long since decayed. As plaque builds up it sometimes traps cells from the inside of the mouth, and so there could be traces of DNA left even after 146,000 years. When Dr Fu and her colleagues did manage to extract human DNA from the plaque, it was a match for samples of DNA taken from Denisovan fossils. For the first time, scientists now have a confirmed Denisovan skull which means they can work out what our lost ancestors actually looked like. The Dragon Man's skull has large eye sockets, a heavy brow and an exceptionally large and thick cranium. Scientists believe that Dragon Man, and therefore Denisovans, would have had a brain about seven per cent larger than a modern human. Reconstructions based on the skull show a face with heavy, flat cheeks, a wide mouth, and a large nose. However, the biggest implication of the Dragon Man skull's identification is that we now know Denisovans might have been much larger than modern humans. Dr Viola says: 'It emphasizes what we assumed from the teeth, that these are very large and robust people. This also confirms that Dragon Man was from an older lineage of Denisovans which dates back to the earliest records around 217,000 years ago, rather than from the late Denisovan line which branched off around 50,000 years ago 'Harbin [the Dragon Man skull] is one of, if not the largest human cranium we have anywhere in the fossil record.' However, scientists still have many questions about Denisovans that are yet to be answered. In particular, scientists don't yet know whether Dragon Man reflects the full range of diversity that could have existed within the Denisovan population. Dragon Man was probably a heavily-set, stocky hunter-gatherer built to survive the last Ice Age in northern China but Denisovan bones have been found in environments that weren't nearly as cold. Professor John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told MailOnline: 'Harbin gives us a strong indication that some of them are large, with large skulls. 'But we have some good reasons to suspect that Denisovans lived across quite a wide geographic range, from Siberia into Indonesia, and they may have been in many different environmental settings. 'I wouldn't be surprised if they are as variable in body size and shape as people living across the same range of geographies today.' THE DENISOVANS EXPLAINED Who were they? The Denisovans are an extinct species of human that appear to have lived in Siberia and even down as far as southeast Asia. The individuals belonged to a genetically distinct group of humans that were distantly related to Neanderthals but even more distantly related to us. Although remains of these mysterious early humans have mostly been discovered at the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, DNA analysis has shown the ancient people were widespread across Asia. Scientists were able to analyse DNA from a tooth and from a finger bone excavated in the Denisova cave in southern Siberia. The discovery was described as 'nothing short of sensational.' In 2020, scientists reported Denisovan DNA in the Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet. This discovery marked the first time Denisovan DNA had been recovered from a location that is outside Denisova Cave. How widespread were they? Researchers are now beginning to find out just how big a part they played in our history. DNA from these early humans has been found in the genomes of modern humans over a wide area of Asia, suggesting they once covered a vast range. They are thought to have been a sister species of the Neanderthals, who lived in western Asia and Europe at around the same time. The two species appear to have separated from a common ancestor around 200,000 years ago, while they split from the modern human Homo sapien lineage around 600,000 years ago. Last year researchers even claimed they could have been the first to reach Australia. Aboriginal people in Australia contain both Neanderthal DNA, as do most humans, and Denisovan DNA. This latter genetic trace is present in Aboriginal people at the present day in much greater quantities than any other people around the world. How advanced were they? Bone and ivory beads found in the Denisova Cave were discovered in the same sediment layers as the Denisovan fossils, leading to suggestions they had sophisticated tools and jewellery. Professor Chris Stringer, an anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said: 'Layer 11 in the cave contained a Denisovan girl's fingerbone near the bottom but worked bone and ivory artefacts higher up, suggesting that the Denisovans could have made the kind of tools normally associated with modern humans. 'However, direct dating work by the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit reported at the ESHE meeting suggests the Denisovan fossil is more than 50,000 years old, while the oldest 'advanced' artefacts are about 45,000 years old, a date which matches the appearance of modern humans elsewhere in Siberia.' Did they breed with other species? Yes. Today, around 5 per cent of the DNA of some Australasians – particularly people from Papua New Guinea – is Denisovans. Now, researchers have found two distinct modern human genomes - one from Oceania and another from East Asia - both have distinct Denisovan ancestry. The genomes are also completely different, suggesting there were at least two separate waves of prehistoric intermingling between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Researchers already knew people living today on islands in the South Pacific have Denisovan ancestry.
CNN
19-06-2025
- Science
- CNN
‘Dragon Man' DNA revelation puts a face to a mysterious group of ancient humans
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — An enigmatic skull recovered from the bottom of a well in northeastern China in 2018 sparked intrigue when it didn't match any previously known species of prehistoric human. Now, scientists say they have found evidence of where the fossil fits, and it could be a key piece in another cryptic evolutionary puzzle. After several failed attempts, the researchers managed to extract genetic material from the fossilized cranium — nicknamed Dragon Man — linking it to an enigmatic group of early humans known as Denisovans. A dozen or so Denisovan fossilized bone fragments had previously been found and identified using ancient DNA. But the specimens' small size offered little idea of what this shadowy population of ancient hominins looked like, and the group has never been assigned an official scientific name. Scientists typically consider skulls, with telltale bumps and ridges, the best type of fossilized remains to understand the form or appearance of an extinct hominin species. The new findings, if confirmed, could effectively put a face to the Denisovan name. 'I really feel that we have cleared up some of the mystery surrounding this population,' said Qiaomei Fu, a professor at the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and lead author of the new research. 'After 15 years, we know the first Denisovan skull.' Denisovans were first discovered in 2010 by a team that included Fu — who was then a young researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany — from ancient DNA contained in a pinkie fossil found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Russia. Additional remains unearthed in the cave, from which the group gets its name, and elsewhere in Asia continue to add to the still-incomplete picture. The new research, described in two scientific papers published Wednesday, is 'definitely going to be among, if not the, biggest paleoanthropology papers of the year,' and will spur debate in the field 'for quite some time,' said Ryan McRae, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, who was not involved in the studies. The findings could help fill in gaps about a time when Homo sapiens weren't the only humans roaming the planet — and teach scientists more about modern humans. Our species once coexisted for tens of thousands of years and interbred with both Denisovans and Neanderthals before the two went extinct. Most humans today carry a genetic legacy of those ancient encounters. Neanderthal fossils have been the subject of study for than a century, but scant details are known about our mysterious Denisovan cousins, and a skull fossil can reveal a great deal. Long in the tooth A laborer in the city of Harbin in northeastern China discovered the Dragon Man skull in 1933. The man, who was constructing a bridge over the Songhua River when that part of the country was under Japanese occupation, took home the specimen and stored it at the bottom of a well for safekeeping. The man never retrieved his treasure, and the cranium, with one tooth still attached in the upper jaw, remained unknown to science for decades until his relatives learned about it before his death. His family donated the fossil to Hebei GEO University, and researchers first described it in a set of studies published in 2021 that found the skull to be at least 146,000 years old. The researchers argued that the fossil merited a new species name given the unique nature of the skull, naming it Homo longi — which is derived from Heilongjiang, or Black Dragon River, the province where the cranium was found. Some experts at the time hypothesized that the skull might be Denisovan, while others have lumped the cranium in with a cache of difficult-to-classify fossils found in China, resulting in intense debate and making molecular data from the fossil particularly valuable. Given the skull's age and backstory, Fu said she knew it would be challenging to extract ancient DNA from the fossil to better understand where it fit in the human family tree. 'There are only bones from 4 sites over 100,000 (years old) in the world that have ancient DNA,' she noted via email. Fu and her colleagues attempted to retrieve ancient DNA from six samples taken from Dragon Man's surviving tooth and the cranium's petrous bone, a dense piece at the base of the skull that's often a rich source of DNA in fossils, without success. The team also tried to retrieve genetic material from the skull's dental calculus — the gunk left on teeth that can over time form a hard layer and preserve DNA from the mouth. From this process, the researchers managed to recover mitochondrial DNA, which is less detailed than nuclear DNA but revealed a link between the sample and the known Denisovan genome, according to one new paper published in the journal Cell. 'Mitochondrial DNA is only a small portion of the total genome but can tell us a lot. The limitations lie in its relatively small size compared to nuclear DNA and in the fact that it is only inherited from the matrilineal side, not both biological parents,' McRae said. 'Therefore, without nuclear DNA a case could be made that this individual is a hybrid with a Denisovan mother, but I think that scenario is rather less likely than this fossil belonging to a full Denisovan,' he added. Mounting evidence The team additionally recovered protein fragments from the petrous bone samples, the analysis of which also suggested the Dragon Man skull belonged to a Denisovan population, according to a separate paper published Wednesday in the journal Science. Together, 'these papers increase the impact of establishing the Harbin cranium as a Denisovan,' Fu said. The molecular data provided by the two papers is potentially very important, said anthropologist Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London's Natural History Museum. 'I have been collaborating with Chinese scientists on new morphological analyses of human fossils, including Harbin,' he said. 'Combined with our studies, this work makes it increasingly likely that Harbin is the most complete fossil of a Denisovan found so far.' However, Xijun Ni, a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing who, along with Stringer, worked on the initial Dragon Man research but not the latest studies, said that he is cautious about the outcome of the two papers because some of the DNA extraction methods used were 'experimental.' Ni also said he finds it strange that DNA was obtained from surface dental calculus but not inside the tooth and petrous bone, given that the calculus appeared to be more exposed to potential contamination. Nonetheless, he added that he thinks it is likely the skull and other fossils identified as Denisovan are from the same human species. The goal in using a new extraction approach was to recover as much genetic material as possible, Fu explained, adding that the dense crystalline structure of dental calculus may help prevent the host DNA from being lost. The protein signatures Fu and her team recovered indicated 'a Denisovan attribution, with other attributions very unlikely,' said Frido Welker, an associate professor of biomolecular paleoanthropology at the University of Copenhagen's Globe Institute in Denmark. Welker has recovered Denisovan proteins from other candidate fossils but was not involved in this research. 'With the Harbin cranium now linked to Denisovans based on molecular evidence, a larger portion of the hominin fossil record can be compared reliably to a known Denisovan specimen based on morphology,' he said. A name and a face for Denisovans With the Dragon Man skull now linked to Denisovans based on molecular evidence, it will be easier for paleoanthropologists to classify other potential Denisovan remains from China and elsewhere. McRae, Ni and Stringer all said they thought it was likely that Homo longi would become the official species name for Denisovans, although other names have been proposed. 'Renaming the entire suite of Denisovan evidence as Homo longi is a bit of a step, but one that has good standing since the scientific name Homo longi was technically the first to be, now, tied to Denisovan fossils,' McRae said. However, he added that he doubts the informal name of Denisovan is going anywhere anytime soon, suggesting it might become shorthand for the species, as Neanderthal is to Homo neanderthalensis. The findings also make it possible to say a little more about what Denisovans might have looked like, assuming the Dragon Man skull belonged to a typical individual. According to McRae, the ancient human would have had very strong brow ridges, brains 'on par in size to Neanderthals and modern humans' but larger teeth than both cousins. Overall, Denisovans would have had a blocky and robust-looking appearance. 'As with the famous image of a Neanderthal dressed in modern attire, they would most likely still be recognizable as 'human,'' McRae said. 'They are still our more mysterious cousin, just slightly less so than before,' he added. 'There is still a lot of work to be done to figure out exactly who the Denisovans were and how they are related to us and other hominins.'
