Skull, one million people, rewrites human evolution, say scientists

A human skull of one million people found in China suggests that our species, Homo sapiens, began to emerge at least half a million years earlier than we thought, the researchers did not claim it in a new study.

It also shows that we have coexisted with other sisters species, including Neanderthals, for much longer than we have come to believe, they say.

Scientists claim that their analysis “completely changes” our understanding of human evolution and, if it is correct, it would certainly rewrite a first key chapter in our history.

But other experts in an area where the disagreement on our emergence on the planet is commonplace, say that the conclusions of the new study are plausible but far from being certain.

The Discovery, published in the main scientific review Science, shocked the research team, which included scientists from a university in China and the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom.

“From the start, when we got the result, we thought it was incredible. How could it be so deep in the past?” said Professor Xijun or the Fudan University, who co-directed the analysis.

“But we have tested it again and again to test all the models, use all the methods, and we are now confident on the result, and we are in fact very excited.”

When scientists found the skull, named Yunxian 2, they assumed that it belonged to one of our previous ancestors, Homo erectus, the first humans with a big brain. This is because it dates back to about a million years, long before more advanced humans were emerged.

Homo Erectus finally evolved and started diverge 600,000 years ago in Neanderthals and our species – Homo sapiens.

But the new analysis of Yunxian 2, which was examined by independent experts from the research team, suggests that it is not Homo erectus.

It is believed that it is a first version of Homo Longi, a sister species at development levels similar to Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.

The genetic evidence suggests that it existed by its side, so if Yunxian 2 walked on earth a million years ago, say that scientists, the first versions of Neanderthal and our own species have probably done so.

This surprising analysis has considerably timed the chronology of the evolution of humans with a big brain of at least half a million years, according to Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, co-directing on research.

He said there are probably Homo Sapiens fossils, aged a million of years, somewhere on our planet – we haven’t found them yet.

There are two ways to locate the species of an early human and to train when he has traveled the earth – analyzing the shape of the skull and its genetic data. In the case of Yunxian 2, the two methods were used, and each came to the same conclusion.

But other researchers, such as Dr. Aylwyn Scally, an evolving geneticist at the University of Cambridge, say that there are considerable uncertainties in the two methods.

“You have to be particularly provisional on synchronization estimates, because these are very difficult to make, whatever the proof that you are looking at, whether genetic or fossil evidence,” he said.

“Even with the greatest amount of genetic data, it is very difficult to place a time when these populations can be coexisted at less than 100,000 years, or even more.”

He added that even if the conclusions of teachers ni and Stringer were plausible, they were far from being some and that more evidence was necessary to be sure.

“This image is not yet clear to us, so if the conclusions of this research are supported by other analyzes, ideally from certain genetic data, then I think we would start to be more and more confident on this subject,” he told BBC News.

The first evidence known to the first Homo Sapiens in Africa are 300,000 years ago, it is therefore tempting to conclude that our species could have evolved first in Asia.

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

“There is genetic evidence that indicates the still anterior emergence of our species which may have recominated with our line, but this is not yet proven,” he told BBC News.

The previous calendar means that the three species of humans coexisted on the planet for about 800,000 years, much longer than we thought before, perhaps interacting and cross at that time.

The previous emergence also helps to give meaning to dozens of human fossils which dubes 800,000 years ago and 100,000 years ago that scientists had trouble classifying and finding their place in the human family tree – the so -called “confusion in the middle”.

But the previous emergence of Homo sapiens, Homo Longi and Neanderthals perfectly solves the problem. This means that it is now possible to group fossils that are difficult to classify as a subgroup belonging to one of the “three large” or their more primitive ancestors, Asian Homo Erectus and Heidelbergensis, according to Professor Ni.

“Human evolution is like a tree,” he said. “This tree included several branches, and there were three large branches which are closely linked, and they can have a certain crossing to each other, and they coexisted for almost a million years. It is therefore an incredible result.”

The skull was searched with two others from the province of Hubei. But they were damaged and crushed, which is one of the reasons why Yunxian 2 had been wrong as an erect.

To restore them to their original form, the teacher’s team nor scanned the skulls and has not distorted them using computer modeling techniques, then replicas printed on a 3D printer.

See them because they really allowed scientists to reclassify them as a more advanced group of humans.