Scientists hail stunning 'Dragon Man' discovery

[Warpy]

"In terms of fossils in the last million years, this is one of the most important yet discovered," he told BBC News.

"What you have here is a separate branch of humanity that is not on its way to becoming Homo sapiens (our species), but represents a long-separate lineage which evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and eventually went extinct."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57432104

Long and worthwhile article. One guess for which there is a lot of circumstantial evidence is that we might finally know what the Denisovans looked like.

[Goonch]

1. ;-{)

A reconstruction of Homo longi

Chuang Zhao

A large fossil skull discovered in China may belong to one of our mysterious long-lost relatives, the Denisovans, potentially offering us our first glimpse of a Denisovan face. It has, however, been placed in a new human species – Homo longi – a name that derives from a Chinese term meaning “dragon”, and that means the early hominin may become known informally as “dragon man”.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282223-dragon-man-claimed-as-new-species-of-ancient-human-but-doubts-remain/

[Warpy]

3. Thanks!

Given some of their artifacts, Denisovans were already surmised to have more upstairs than Neanderthals did If this skull is confirmed as Demisovan, it will answer a lot of questions a child's finger bone couldn't.

[forgotmylogin]

2. Wow, Dragon Man was JACKED. n/t

[Shermann]

4. Yeah and he LOST at the survival of the fittest! nt

[Warpy]

5. If he turns out to be Denisovan, he survived just fine

on the Tiobetan plateau, in Melanesia, and some Native American populations. He was especially the fittest at high altitude, since it was his genes that allowed people to adapt to extreme high altitude.

People in the Andes lack his advantages, so they resort to short stature, polycythemia, and coca.

[wnylib]

6. Denisovan also survived through

intermating with Neanderthal who intermated with Homo sapiens. Some Asian populations have DNA from all 3.

From what I've read there are only a few small traces of Denisovan DNA in some Native American populations.

The highest amounts are in southeast Asia.