Somewhere within a Beijing collection resides a piece of a child’s lower jaw that has managed to quietly vex all those who delve into human origins for the past three years.<\/p>\n
This fragment was uncovered at Hualongdong, a collapsed cavern in Anhui province in eastern China, alongside the remains of approximately 16 individuals who perished around 300,000 years ago. The jaw aligns with a partial skull designated as HLD 6, belonging to a child approximately 12 or 13 years of age. Xiujie Wu from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing headed a research team that compared the bone to 83 other fossil hominins and a sample of contemporary humans. They shared their findings in the [Journal of Human Evolution](https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jhevol.2023.103411).<\/p>\n
The results were complex, in a productive manner. A robust bone structure throughout the jaw coexisted with a leaner, more modern hinge, accompanied by faint indications of a chin that never fully materializes.<\/p>\n
The significance of a missing chin<\/p>\n
Though a chin might seem an insubstantial feature to base taxonomy on, it is among a few skeletal traits distinctive to Homo sapiens. Neanderthals lacked this feature, and Denisovans, as their limited remains imply, did as well. Mar\u00eda Martin\u00f3n-Torres, head of Spain\u2019s National Research Center on Human Evolution and co-author of the study, conveyed to [CNN](https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/08\/10\/asia\/ancient-skull-china-human-evolution-intl-scli-scn\/index.html) that HLD 6 does not possess a true chin, only faintly articulated characteristics that seem to hint at one.<\/p>\n
In a discussion with [Scientific American](https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/possible-new-human-species-found-through-300-000-year-old-jawbone-fossil\/), she compared the mixture to fossils found at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, which share similar age and are typically regarded as early members of the sapiens lineage. If this comparison stands, a population in eastern China exhibited modern facial features concurrently with populations in North Africa, which deviates from the traditional narrative.<\/p>\n
One juvenile jaw remains merely one juvenile jaw, and the research team refrained from identifying a new species.<\/p>\n
A damaged skull from Hubei<\/p>\n
The earlier issue is significantly larger. In 1990, a skull was retrieved from a river terrace above the Hanjiang in Hubei province, compressed by a million years of sediment. Its geological dating ranges from 0.94 to 1.10 million years. As nothing more evolved was thought to exist during that period, Yunxian 2 was labeled as Homo erectus by default and mostly left there.<\/p>\n
Led by Xijun Ni of Fudan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and collaborating with Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, a team utilized CT scanning and structured light imaging to digitally analyze the fractures and reconstruct the skull. In their publication in [Science](https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.ado9202) in September 2025, they positioned the skull within the Asian longi clade, a group that likely includes the Denisovans and shares a sister lineage with Homo sapiens.<\/p>\n
This revision is significant. A [Natural History Museum](https:\/\/www.nhm.ac.uk\/press-office\/press-releases\/analysis-of-reconstructed-ancient-skull-pushes-back-our-origins-.html) press release presents it in rough numbers: the emergence of Homo sapiens has been pushed back by around 400,000 years, to just over a million years ago. The underlying tree for this assertion is more precise. It estimates the divergence between the sapiens lineage and the longi and Denisovan lineage at approximately 1.32 million years ago, with the Neanderthal lineage separating off even earlier, around 1.38 million years ago. Earlier genetic estimates had positioned this same divergence closer to 600,000 years, a difference nearer to 700,000 years than indicated by the aforementioned headline figure. Stringer is cited in that release describing Yunxian 2 as \u201can early member of the longi clade linked to the Denisovans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where other researchers gather insights<\/p>\n
\u201cUnjustified considering all the uncertainties.\u201d That\u2019s how Andy Herries, an archaeologist at La Trobe University who is not involved in the study, characterized the notion of classifying the fossil as H. longi, in remarks to [ABC Science](https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/science\/2025-09-26\/million-year-old-skull-reconstruction-and-human-evolution\/105819746). His procedural objection carries more weight. The reconstruction incorporated features from Yunxian 1, the more severely damaged of the two skulls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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