Digital reconstruction of a crushed skull from an ancient human relative could rewrite the timeline of human evolution, researchers said.
A cranium dubbed Yunxian 2 was found in the Yunxian region of China’s Hubei province in 1990, alongside another found the previous year, according to a paper published Thursday in Science.
The skull had been crushed, but digital reconstruction corrected previous distortions and allowed scientists to gain a better understanding of the early human’s physical traits, researchers said.
Recently introduced technology allowed researchers to reconstruct what Yunxian 2 would have looked like. They used advanced CT scanning and digital construction to correct the compression and distortions in the crania, which revealed a mix of previously unknown traits.
The reconstructed cranium appeared large and long, with a broad and flat braincase, according to the paper.
It lacked both the strongly angulated occipital — a bone in the back of the head — found in H. erectus, as well as the protruding occipital region typical of Neanderthals, they noted.
H.longi individuals exhibited distinctive traits, such as a larger braincase and narrower spacing between the eyes and elongated frontal bone, according to the paper.
All of these characteristics were “clearly visible” in the digital reconstruction of the Yunxian 2 cranium, the researchers said.
If the findings are accepted, it could push back the emergence of H. sapiens by hundreds of thousands of years, according to the researchers.