''Homo longi'' is an extinct
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
archaic human
A number of varieties of '' Homo'' are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) f ...
identified from a nearly complete skull, nicknamed 'Dragon Man', from
Harbin on the
Northeast China Plain
The Northeast China Plain (), commonly known as Song liao Plain or the Manchurian Plain or just the Northeast Plain, is located in Northeast China, historically also known as Manchuria. It lies between the Greater and Lesser Khingan and Changba ...
, dating to at minimum 146,000 years ago during the
Middle Pleistocene
The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...
. The skull was discovered in 1933 along the
Songhua River
The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea bo ...
while the was under construction for the
Manchukuo National Railway
The Manchukuo National Railway (Traditional Chinese and Japanese kanji: , Japanese romanization: ''Manshū Kokuyū Tetsudō'') was the state-owned national railway company of Manchukuo. Generally called the "國線" ("National Line", ''Kokusen' ...
. Due to a tumultuous wartime atmosphere, it was hidden and only brought to
paleoanthropologists
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship ...
in 2018. The original describers postulated ''H. longi'' represents a member of the
Denisovan
The Denisovans or Denisova hominins ) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human that ranged across Asia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Denisovans are known from few physical remains and consequently, most of what is known ...
s, though this is unconfirmable without genetic testing. They also considered
modern human
Early modern human (EMH) or anatomically modern human (AMH) are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' (the only extant Hominina species) that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans from extin ...
s to be more closely related to ''H. longi'' than to the European
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
s, but DNA evidence suggests Denisovans are more closely related to Neanderthals than modern humans.
''H. longi'' is broadly anatomically similar to other Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens. Like other archaic humans, the skull is low and long, with massively developed brow ridges, wide
eye sockets
In anatomy, the orbit is the cavity or socket of the skull in which the eye and its appendages are situated. "Orbit" can refer to the bony socket, or it can also be used to imply the contents. In the adult human, the volume of the orbit is , o ...
, and a large mouth. The skull is the longest ever found from any human species. Like modern humans, the face is rather flat, but the nose was rather large. The brain volume was 1,420 cc, within the range of modern humans and Neanderthals.
The Harbin individual inhabited a cold,
steppeland environment alongside the
woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus s ...
,
giant deer
The Irish elk (''Megaloceros giganteus''), also called the giant deer or Irish deer, is an extinct species of deer in the genus '' Megaloceros'' and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia during the Pleist ...
,
Przewalski's horse
Przewalski's horse (, , (Пржевальский ), ) (''Equus ferus przewalskii'' or ''Equus przewalskii''), also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered horse originally native to the steppes of ...
,
elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
,
buffalo, and
brown bear
The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...
.
Taxonomy
Etymology
The specific name for ''H. longi'' is derived from the geographic name ''Longjiang'' (literally "Dragon River"), a term commonly used for the Chinese province
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...
.
[
]
Discovery
A local laborer found a nearly complete skull at the riverbank of Songhua River
The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea bo ...
in 1933 when he was building the in Harbin (at the time part of Manchukuo) for the Japanese-aligned Manchukuo National Railway
The Manchukuo National Railway (Traditional Chinese and Japanese kanji: , Japanese romanization: ''Manshū Kokuyū Tetsudō'') was the state-owned national railway company of Manchukuo. Generally called the "國線" ("National Line", ''Kokusen' ...
. Recognizing its importance, likely as a result of public interest in anthropology recently generated by the Peking Man
Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'') is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave of northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has s ...
in 1929, he hid it from the Manchukuo authorities in an abandoned well. After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian strategic offensive operation (russian: Манчжурская стратегическая наступательная операция, Manchzhurskaya Strategicheskaya Nastu ...
, ending the Japanese occupation of the region, he concealed his former employment from the Nationalist and later the Communist authorities. Consequently, he could not report the skull, lest he divulge his ties to the Japanese imperialists in explaining its origin.[
Before his death, the third generation of his family learned of the skull, and reclaimed it in 2018. Later that year, Chinese paleoanthropologist Ji Qiang persuaded the family to donate it to the Hebei GEO University for study, where it has since been stored. Its catalogue number is HBSM2018-000018(A).][
]
Age
Owing to the skull's history, its exact provenance, and thus its stratigraphic
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostra ...
context and age, has been difficult to determine. In 2021, Chinese geologist Shao Qingfeng and colleagues performed non-destructive x-ray fluorescence
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis ...
, rare-earth element
The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides ( yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silv ...
, and strontium isotope analyses on the skull and various other mammalian fossils unearthed around Dongjiang Bridge, and determined that all the fossils from the vicinity were likely deposited at around the same time, lived in the same region, and originate below the surface of Dongjian, correlating to within the Upper Huangshan Formation (constrained to 309 to 138 thousand years ago).[
Direct ]uranium–thorium dating
Uranium–thorium dating, also called thorium-230 dating, uranium-series disequilibrium dating or uranium-series dating, is a radiometric dating technique established in the 1960s which has been used since the 1970s to determine the age of calciu ...
of various points on the skull yielded a wide range of dates, from 296 to 62 thousand years ago, likely a result of uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
leaching
Leaching is the loss or extraction of certain materials from a carrier into a liquid (usually, but not always a solvent). and may refer to:
* Leaching (agriculture), the loss of water-soluble plant nutrients from the soil; or applying a small amou ...
. They statistically determined the most likely minimum age is 146,000 years old, but a more exact value is difficult to determine, given that the exact provenance is unidentifiable. Nonetheless, the skull is well-constrained to the late Middle Pleistocene
The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...
, roughly contemporaneous with other Chinese specimens from Xiahe
Xiahe (; ) is a county in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province, the People's Republic of China, bordering Qinghai province to the west. It is home to the famed Labrang Tibetan Buddhist monastery, one of the largest Tibetan Buddhi ...
, Jinniushan
Jinniushan () is a Middle Pleistocene paleoanthropological site, dating to around 260,000 BP, most famous for its archaic hominin fossils. The site is located near Yingkou, Liaoning, China. Several new species of extinct birds were also discovere ...
, Dali, and Hualong Cave
Hualong Cave () is a cave in Pangwang village in Dongzhi County, Anhui Province, China, and situated on the southern bank of Yangtze. It is located on the side of Meiyuan Hill. Palaeontological interest started in 2004 when a farmer accidentally ...
.[
]
Classification
In two simultaneously published papers, Ji and colleagues declared the Harbin skull to represent a new species they dubbed ''Homo longi''. The Harbin skull is quite similar to the Dali skull, and when the Dali skull was discovered in 1978, it was given a new nomen ''H. sapiens daliensis'' by its discoverer Wu Xinzhi who soon thereafter abandoned the name. Consequently, should the Middle Pleistocene Asian humans represent a single unique species, the nomen ''H. daliensis'' would take priority. Though they recommended resurrecting ''H. daliensis'', they argued ''H. longi'' is sufficiently distinct, and allocated only the Dali and Hualong remains (often allocated to '' H. heidelbergensis'' by convention) to ''H. daliensis''; thus, they claim at least two human species inhabited late Middle Pleistocene China.[ One of the authors, Chris Stringer, stated that he would have preferred assigning the Harbin skull to ''H. daliensis''.
Based on the conspicuously massive size of the molars, they suggested ''H. longi'' is most closely related to and possibly the same species as the Xiahe mandible from ]Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
, which has been grouped with the enigmatic Denisovan
The Denisovans or Denisova hominins ) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human that ranged across Asia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Denisovans are known from few physical remains and consequently, most of what is known ...
s, an archaic human
A number of varieties of '' Homo'' are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) f ...
lineage apparently dispersed across East Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene currently identifiable from only a genetic signature. The Xiahe mandible is also anatomically similar to specimens from Xujiayao
Xujiayao, located in the Nihewan Basin in China, is an early Late Pleistocene paleoanthropological site famous for its archaic hominin fossils.
Location
Xujiayao is located on the west bank of the Liyi River, a tributary of the Sanggan River. Xuji ...
and Penghu.[ Ji, Ni and colleagues further contend that Middle Pleistocene Asian specimens are more closely related to modern humans (''H. sapiens'') than the European ]Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
s, though nuclear DNA
Nuclear DNA (nDNA), or nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid, is the DNA contained within each cell nucleus of a eukaryotic organism. It encodes for the majority of the genome in eukaryotes, with mitochondrial DNA and plastid DNA coding for the rest. I ...
and ancient protein analyses place the Xiahe mandible and Denisovans more closely to Neanderthals than to modern humans.
Anatomy
''H. longi'' is characterized by a low and long skull, receding forehead, extremely wide upper face, a large nasal opening equating to an enlarged nose (possibly an adaptation to the cold air), large and square eye sockets
In anatomy, the orbit is the cavity or socket of the skull in which the eye and its appendages are situated. "Orbit" can refer to the bony socket, or it can also be used to imply the contents. In the adult human, the volume of the orbit is , o ...
, inflated and thick brow ridge
The brow ridge, or supraorbital ridge known as superciliary arch in medicine, is a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In humans, the eyebrows are located on their lower margin.
Structure
The brow ridge is a nodule or crest ...
s (supraorbital torus), flat cheekbones (zygomatic bone
In the human skull, the zygomatic bone (from grc, ζῠγόν, zugón, yoke), also called cheekbone or malar bone, is a paired irregular bone which articulates with the maxilla, the temporal bone, the sphenoid bone and the frontal bone. It is s ...
), a wide palate
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
and large tooth sockets (equating to a large mouth), and a broad base of the skull
The base of skull, also known as the cranial base or the cranial floor, is the most inferior area of the skull. It is composed of the endocranium and the lower parts of the calvaria.
Structure
Structures found at the base of the skull are for ...
.[ The Harbin skull measures in maximum length x breadth, with a naso-]occipital
The occipital bone () is a cranial dermal bone and the main bone of the occiput (back and lower part of the skull). It is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself like a shallow dish. The occipital bone overlies the occipital lobes of the cereb ...
length of , making it the longest archaic human skull to date.[ For comparison, the dimensions of a modern human skull average for men and for women. The Harbin skull also has the longest brow ridge at .][
]
''H. longi'' had a massive brain at roughly 1,420 cc, above the range of all known human species except modern humans and Neanderthals. Nonetheless, post-orbital constriction
In physical anthropology, post-orbital constriction is the narrowing of the cranium (skull) just behind the eye sockets (the orbits, hence the name) found in most non-human primates and early hominins. This constriction is very noticeable in non-hu ...
(constriction of the braincase just behind the eyes, equating to the frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove be ...
, absent in modern humans) is more developed in ''H. longi'' than in Neanderthals, although not so much as in more-ancient human species.[ Overall, the braincase retains an array of archaic features, though the occipital bone at the back of the skull has a weakly-defined ]sagittal keel
In the human skull, a sagittal keel, or sagittal torus, is a thickening of part or all of the midline of the frontal bone, or parietal bones where they meet along the sagittal suture, or on both bones. Sagittal keels differ from sagittal crests, w ...
that lacks a protuberance at the midpoint, unlike most other archaic humans. Unlike the Dali and Hualong Cave skulls, the keel does not run across the midline. Unlike modern humans or Neanderthals, the parietal bone
The parietal bones () are two bones in the skull which, when joined at a fibrous joint, form the sides and roof of the cranium. In humans, each bone is roughly quadrilateral in form, and has two surfaces, four borders, and four angles. It is nam ...
s on the top of the head do not significantly expand or protrude.[
Despite the face being so wide, it was rather flat (reduced mid-facial prognathism), and resembles the anatomy found in modern humans, the far more ancient '']H. antecessor
''Homo antecessor'' (Latin "pioneer man") is an extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago during the Early Pleistocene. Populations of thi ...
'', and other Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens. Nonetheless, the tooth sockets for the incisors were angled outward (alveolar prognathism). The ''H. longi'' skull's mosaic morphology of archaic and derived traits converges with some of the earliest specimens assigned to ''H. sapiens'' from Africa, notably Rabat and Eliye Springs
Eliye Springs, also known as Ille Springs, is a remote village on the western shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya, near the mouth of River Turkwel. It is located 50 kilometres east of Lodwar and 40 kilometres south of Kalokol.
The local springs for ...
. Because the original describers judged the Harbin skull to be closely allied with the Xiahe mandible, they believed ''H. longi'' lacked a chin, like other archaic humans, but the specimen's lower jaw was not recovered.[ The only preserved tooth, the upper left second molar, is enormous, with a length x breadth (mesiodistal x labiolingual) of , comparable to the Denisovan molar recovered from ]Denisova Cave
Denisova Cave (russian: Денисова пещера, lit= the cave of Denis, translit= Denísova peshchéra; alt, Аю-Таш, lit= Bear Rock, translit= Ayu Tash) is a cave in the Bashelaksky Range of the Altai mountains, Siberia, Russia. The ...
. The Harbin molar is oval-shaped, badly worn, and nearly flat.[ In contrast, the average dimensions of a sample of 40 modern human male molars were .
Ni and colleagues believed the Harbin skull represents a male, judging by the robustness and size of the skull, who was less than 50 years old, looking at the suture closures and the degree of tooth wearing. They speculated ''H. longi'' had perhaps medium-dark to medium-light skin, dark hair, and dark eye color based on reconstructed genetic sequences from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and early modern humans.][
]
Pathology
The left parietal features shallow indents around the bregma
The bregma is the anatomical point on the skull at which the coronal suture is intersected perpendicularly by the sagittal suture.
Structure
The bregma is located at the intersection of the coronal suture and the sagittal suture on the superi ...
, possibly from a healed injury. The second left upper molar does not appear to have been in contact with the third molar, which means either that the third molar was small (creating a gap), or it was absent in this individual.[
]
Paleoenvironment
Due to the Pleistocene glaciation
The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial and interglacial periods during the Quaternary period that began 2.58 Ma (million years ago) and is ongoing. Although geologists describe ...
(the Ice Ages), the Earth continually swung from frigid glacial period
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betwe ...
s to warmer interglacials. The period from 300 to 130 thousand years ago spans the Penultimate Glacial Period
The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial age that occurred before the Last Glacial Period. The penultimate glacial period is officially unnamed just like the Last Glacial Period. The word ''penultimate'' simply means second to last. ...
, and the permafrost zone may have stretched south far past Harbin (although indicators of permafrost activity are lacking so far back in time). Similarly, the Northeast China Plain
The Northeast China Plain (), commonly known as Song liao Plain or the Manchurian Plain or just the Northeast Plain, is located in Northeast China, historically also known as Manchuria. It lies between the Greater and Lesser Khingan and Changba ...
during the late Middle Pleistocene was home to the ''Mammuthus
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, i ...
''–''Coelodonta
''Coelodonta'' (, from the Greek κοιλία, ''koilía'' and οδούς, ''odoús'', "hollow tooth", in reference to the deep grooves of their molars) is an extinct genus of rhinoceros that lived in Eurasia between 3.7 million years to 10,000 ...
'' Fauna, an assemblage of animals adapted for a cold steppe, most notably the woolly mammoth
The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus s ...
and the woolly rhinoceros
The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a me ...
. In addition to the woolly mammoth, the Dongjiang Bridge locality
Locality may refer to:
* Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England
* Locality (linguistics)
* Locality (settlement)
* Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...
also features the giant deer '' Sinomegaceros ordosianus'', Przewalski's horse
Przewalski's horse (, , (Пржевальский ), ) (''Equus ferus przewalskii'' or ''Equus przewalskii''), also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered horse originally native to the steppes of ...
, elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
, the buffalo '' Bubalus wansjock'', and the brown bear
The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...
.[
]
See also
* Maba Man
* Red Deer Cave people
The Red Deer Cave people were a prehistoric population of humans known from bones dated to between about 17,830 to c. 11,500 years ago, found in Red Deer Cave (Maludong, ) and Longlin Cave, Yunnan Province, in Southwest China.
The fossils exhibit ...
References
External links
2021 article in the ''New York Times''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q107344401
1933 archaeological discoveries
Prehistoric mammals of Asia
Fossil taxa described in 2021
2021 in paleontology
People from Harbin
History of Harbin
Harbin Heritage Sites
Human evolution
Fossils of China