The puzzle of human evolution and has one more piece. Just a thigh bone found in China by an international team of paleontologists has been sufficient to prove that an ancient human species, believed extinct for tens of thousands of years, actually managed to survive until very recent times, in particular to the end of the last Ice Age, about 14,000 years ago.
The fossil, found in the enigmatic cave “Red Deer” (Reed Deer Cave), has been, in fact, have characteristics that relate directly to some of the earliest members of the genus Homo, to which we all belong. And this despite the bone just have about 14,000 years old.
The finding, which was just published in the journal PLoS ONE, was conducted by a team of researchers led by Darren Curnoe, of the Australian University of New South Wales, and Ji Xueping, the Institute of Archaeology of Yunnan in China.
Specifically, the study focuses on a detailed analysis of a fragment of femur, for more than a quarter century, remained guarded and unstudied in a museum in Yunnan after being found in 1989 along with other human remains in Red Deer Cave.
To the surprise of researchers, who have chosen to be very cautious about attributing a particular identity to the fossil, the analysis resulted that the characteristics of fossil matched perfectly with those of Homo habilis and Homo erectus, who lived and They thrived for over a million and a half years.
“The young age of the remains suggests the possibility that early humans could have survived until very late in our evolution declares Ji but to be a single rest, need to be cautious.”
What is not in doubt is that the discovery is already the subject of bitter scientific controversy. In fact, until now it was thought that the most recent representatives of the pre modern humans in Eurasia (the neandedrtales in Europe and West Asia and Denisovans in southern Siberia) had been completely extinguished about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the modern humans occupied the region.
“But the new finding explains Curnoe on its part opens the possibility of a pre-modern species could have overlapped in time with modern humans in mainland East Asia, although this case will slowly build, with new discoveries fossil “.
As in the most primitive species such as Homo habilis, partial femur found in China is very small, with a very narrow column shell and an outer layer or very thin. The walls of the column, moreover, are reinforced (or shored) in areas of tension ties. The femoral neck is long, and the position intended for anchoring the hip flexor, very large and strongly oriented backwards. All features that take us more than a million years back in time.
Surprisingly, with an estimated mass of about 50 kg. Bone individual owner also was very small when compared with the usual standards and measures of human Ice Age. Not surprisingly, when the research team announced its first discovery in 2012, the opinion of the scientific community was divided hopelessly.
— AVP
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