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Fox News
11 hours ago
- Science
- Fox News
Mysterious 'dragon man' skull found in the 1930s finally identified
A mysterious human skull found in the 1930s has been identified as an existing species after once being thought to be a new species all together, according to researchers. The studies — posted in the journals Cell and Science — have identified the 146,000-year-old skull known as "dragon man" has been categorized as a Denisovan. The researchers revealed that the Denisovans were discovered by their genomes and proteins to identify them. However, the reason it took so long to identify was that the attempts to extract DNA from a tooth failed. Researchers also tried extracting DNA from the Harbin cranium as well, which also failed. When those methods failed, researchers turned to using dental calculus, which uses calcified dental plaque. The calcified dental plaque could hold and protect DNA due to its dense crystalline structure that resists degradation in various environments. Researchers used bleach on the dental plaque in order to eliminate any possible modern-day DNA. Once extracted, researchers began to compare the genetic material discovered to previous samples. The researchers found that the "dragon man" was not a new species but was a Denisovan and the very first intact specimen to date. According to the researchers, Denisovans coexisted with modern-day humans and are closely related to Neanderthals. The "dragon man" was discovered in mysterious circumstances when a Chinese laborer working on a bridge over the Songhua River found it. The man kept the Harbin cranium well hidden as he was instructed to hide it from the Japanese army. The skull was donated shortly before his death in 2018, after which his family relocated the skull and gave it to the Geoscience Museum, Hebei GEO University professor Qiang Ji. While there are limitations to this study, the researchers said there is still so much to learn moving forward. It was called "dragon man" because it was found in the Heilongjiang province of China, which translates to Black Dragon River. Fox News Digital's Julia Musto contributed to this story.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Science
- New York Times
Mysterious Ancient Humans Now Have a Face
When Qiaomei Fu discovered a new kind of human 15 years ago, she had no idea what it looked like. There was only a fragment of a pinkie bone to go on. The fossil chip, found in a Siberian cave called Denisova, looked as if it might have come from a 66,000-year-old relative of today's humans, or maybe a Neanderthal. But Dr. Fu, then a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and her colleagues found DNA in the fossil that told a different story. The bone had belonged to a girl who was part of a third human lineage never seen before. They named her people the Denisovans. In the years since, Dr. Fu has helped to discover more Denisovan DNA: in teeth and bone fragments from the Denisova cave, in the sediment of a cave floor in Tibet and even in people living today in Asia and the Pacific — evidence of interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago. But without clues from a skeleton or a skull, the physical appearance of these humans remained a mystery, said Dr. Fu, now a geneticist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. 'After 15 years, people want to know, who are the Denisovans?' Now she can put a face to the name. Dr. Fu and her colleagues announced Wednesday that a skull found in China contains both Denisovan DNA and Denisovan protein. 'This moment is special to me,' Dr. Fu said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
