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Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany who was not involved in the new study, said that the Dragon Man skull could “help clarify some of the confusion.” Regardless of whether Dragon Man is a new species, its stunningly preserved features are a reminder that nature rarely paints inside the lines, and that categorization will only get more complex as new discoveries emerge.
The researchers estimated Dragon Man’s evolutionary status using statistical comparisons to other Middle Pleistocene Homo fossils from Africa, Asia and Europe. These comparisons indicated that H. longi shared a common ancestor with H. sapiens around 949,000 years ago, while the common ancestor of Neandertals and H. sapiens dated to just over 1 million years ago. If so, then H. longi had a slightly closer evolutionary relationship to H. sapiens than Neandertals did. Perhaps aware of the magnitude of the find, the man secreted the skull away in an abandoned well. Now, nearly 90 years later, a study published in the journal The Innovation makes the case that this skull represents a new human species: Homo longi,or the Dragon Man.Researchers first studied the cranium, identifying more than 600 traits they fed into a computer model that ran millions of simulations to determine the evolutionary history and relationships between different species. Claims of a new human species are sure to cause skepticism and spark debate. But it seems that wherever the 146,000-year-old fossil falls on the human family tree, it will add to growing evidence that a fascinating and diverse period of evolution was occurring in China from about 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. From the Middle Pleistocene, we have the archaeological record that tells us humans at that time fairly certainly had tools. If they had tools, they probably had culture, because to make tools you generally need to learn those skills socially and pass those skills on to others. It’s unlikely they had agriculture, since we only see evidence of that pop up in the archaeological record 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, nor is it likely they made art, given we generally don’t see that until around 45,000 years later. In the second week of the Forbidden Isles, so it's a hit or miss if you get this quest. One of the Maruuk Envoy quests is to kill 5 elite beast on the islands. NO none of the "rare silvers" etc.. count toward this quest no matter how animal/beast they are.
The studies of the Harbin skull, she notes, add some clarity to the picture thanks to extensive comparisons of morphological and phylogenetic analysis. To work out where the Harbin individual fitted into human history, the scientists fed measurements from the fossil and 95 other skulls into software that compiled the most likely family tree. To their surprise, the Harbin skull and a handful of others from China formed a new branch closer to modern humans than Neanderthals.The researchers believe the skull belonged to a male, about 50 years old, who would have been an impressive physical specimen. His wide, bulbous nose allowed him to breathe huge volumes of air, indicating a high-energy lifestyle, while sheer size would have helped him withstand the brutally cold winters in the region. “Homo longi is heavily built, very robust,” said Prof Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei. “It is hard to estimate the height, but the massive head should match a height higher than the average of modern humans.”
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