Yunxian Skull Suggests Earlier Hominin Splits

Researchers digitally reconstructed a badly crushed cranium (Yunxian 2) unearthed in Hubei, China in 1989–1990 and dated it to roughly 940,000–1.1 million years old. The authors, including Xijun Ni and Chris Stringer, report anatomical affinities with Homo longi ("Dragon Man") and the Denisovan lineage and argue the fossil shows hominin branches leading to Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans were diverging more than a million years ago. Using CT scans, high-resolution surface scanning and digital reconstruction, they compared Yunxian 2 with over 100 fossils and published their results in Science. If widely accepted, the reinterpretation would push the emergence of Homo sapiens back by about 400,000 years, extend the period of coexistence among sister species and raise the possibility of an Asian role in early modern-human origins. However, several specialists remain cautious or unconvinced, noting that genetic evidence and other fossils support a more recent origin and that further review and reanalysis are required.