A One Million Year Old Chinese Skull Redefines the Map of Human Evolution

A digital reconstruction of a skull that is about a million years old has revealed new evidence that may change the prevailing understanding of human history, indicating that the split between humans and their ancient ancestors occurred 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, and possibly in Asia instead of Africa.

The skull, discovered in 1990 in China and named "Yunxian 2", was previously classified as belonging to Homo erectus. However, modern restoration techniques have shown features closer to later species such as the recently discovered Homo naledi and Homo sapiens.

British anthropologist Chris Stringer, who participated in the research, said: "This discovery changes a lot of ideas and shows that our ancestors split into distinct groups a million years ago, meaning human evolution is older and more complex than we thought."

These results open the door to the possibility of human-like ancestors that are much older than Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but at the same time challenge the traditional hypothesis that considers Africa the cradle of human dispersal, as confirmed by researchers from Griffith University in Australia.