Dragon man fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative

A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of known Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or Dragon Man. Their findings, appearing in three papers published in the journal The Innovation, suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives and has the potential to reshape our understanding of human evolution.

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The cranium was reportedly discovered in the 1930s in Harbin City of the Heilongjiang province of China. The massive skull could hold a brain comparable in size to modern humans' but had larger, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth. While it shows typical archaic human features, the Harbin cranium presents a mosaic combination of primitive and derived characters setting itself apart from all the other previously-named Homo species, says Ji, leading to its new species designation of Homo longi.