New organization of East Asian hominid fossils after the discovery of a new species – UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII
A researcher from the University of Hawaii claims to have discovered a new human species called Homo juluensis, which includes mysterious groups such as the Denisovans, relatives still just met.
professor Christopher J. Bae of the Department of Anthropology in the school of Social Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa has been studying human ancestors across Asia for more than 30 years.
Their recent research, published in Nature Communications, helps clear up some of the confusion about the different types of ancient human-like species that coexisted in the region during the late middle Pleistocene and early late Pleistocene.a period between approximately 300,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Homo juluensis lived about 300,000 years ago in eastern Asia, hunting wild horses in small groups, making stone tools and perhaps processing animal hides to survive. before disappearing around 50,000 years ago.
the new species was proposed to include the enigmatic Denisovans, a population known primarily through DNA evidence from some physical remains found in Siberia and some fossils found in Tibet and Laos. More research is needed to verify this relationship, which is based primarily on similarities between fossil jaws and teeth from these different sites. according to a statement on the study.
Bae attributes the progress to aa new way to organize fossil evidence. He and his team essentially created a clearer system for classifying and understanding these ancient human fossils from China, Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia.
“This study clarifies the hominin fossil record, which tends to include anything that cannot easily be assigned to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, or Homo sapiens,” bae said. “Although we started this project several years ago, we did not expect to be able to propose a new species of hominid (human ancestor) and therefore to be able to organize hominid fossils from Asia into different groups. Ultimately, this should help with science communication“.
This work is crucial as it helps scientists (and the rest of us) better understand the complex history of human evolution in Asia, filling in some gaps in our understanding of our ancient relatives, according to the authors.