It is called Homo juluensis and it could be a new human species. This was reported by two researchers from the University of Hawaii and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, according to whom this species would make sense of the great variability of hominids in eastern Asia in the late Quaternary. This would, in addition, include ancient human relatives, the Denisovians whose history remains partly an unsolved mystery. His study has been published on the pages of Nature Communications.
An old family album
Organizing fossil evidence to reconstruct the complex history of human evolution in Asia is a bit like sorting through an old family photo album, in which some images are blurry or difficult to identify. Obviously, this is a much more complex task. Therefore, the authors Christopher J. Bae and Xiujie Wu have basically developed a clearer system for classifying and understanding the fossil record from China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. Specifically, they have attempted to shed light on the different types of species that coexisted in the Asian region during the late Quaternary period, between 300,000 and 50,000 years ago.
East Asia
During that time period, as the authors note, the morphological variability of East Asian hominids is greater than previously assumed. “In fact, there are numerous different populations, some of which now have new specific names: Homo floresiensis; H. luzonensis; H. longi; H. juluensis“, the authors write. This reflects not only a growing hominid fossil record, but also a greater appreciation of the degree of complexity present. This hominid variability is likely the result of a combination of dispersal and ‘introgressive’ hybridization that occurred during the late Quaternary, rather than a single event of complete dispersal and replacement,” according to the study.
A sketch of Homo juluensis
According to the new analysis, the Homo juluensis would have lived about 300,000 years ago in East Asia. His skills included hunting in small groups of wild horsesthe stone tool making and work with animal skins to survive, before becoming extinct about 50 thousand years ago. “This study clarifies the hominid fossil record, which tended to include everything that cannot be easily assigned to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens “Bae explained. “Although we started this project several years ago, we did not expect to be able to propose a new species of hominid and thus be able to organize hominid fossils from Asia into different groups.”
The relationship with the Denisovans
The authors of the new study also proposed that the new species Homo juluensis could include the mysterious Denisovians, a population known primarily through DNA testing of some remains found in Siberia and some fossils found in Tibet and Laos. It must be emphasized, however, that it is evident that More research is needed to confirm this relationship.which is based mainly on the similarities between the jaw and tooth fossils from those sites.
Article originally published in WIRED Italy. Adapted by Mauricio Serfatty Godoy.
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