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‘Dragon Man’ may be an elusive Denisovan
- sxyuan 5y agoFor those without access to the full text, here's a related news article on Science with a bit more context: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/stunning-dragon-man-skull-may-be-elusive-denisovan-or-new-species-human https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/stunning-dragon-man-...
- teruakohatu 5y ago> For now, the paper authors say they do not want to risk destroying the tooth or other bone to get DNA or protein. Yes it might mean their claims of being a new species could be invalidated, but it would be far more exciting if a Denisovan had been finally found. Another paper published recently looks at Denisovan DNA in populations of South East Asian Island populations. http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/southeast-asians-denisovan-dna-09480.html http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/southeast...
- justicezyx 5y ago> Yes it might mean their claims of being a new species could be invalidated Well, if you think they are bad, why not think them as the worst. Maybe the whole Dragon Man is a hoax... Right? Intellectually, I never really understand the mind behind this type of comments... Such minds seem cannot reason long and far enough, but they are very good at distrusting anything...
- gameswithgo 5y agoWell as one gets older you notoce a great amount of nonsense and get cynical. The cynical taking isn’t always correct, and a LOT of people take it too far but mild cynicism is a good bet
- mc32 5y agoOne bit of confusion for me was the dragon part of the name. Peking man was discovered near 'dragon bone hill' (Longgushan) back in 1921 in Zhoukoudian, but this Dragon man was discovered in 1933 in Heilongjiang, and hence the name "Dragon man" (the 'long' (龍) part of the place name meaning dragon). Lots of place names contain dragon this or that in China. These two specimens are not contemporary but separated by at least a 100 thousand years.
- dang 5y agoRecent and related: ‘Dragon Man’ skull may be new species, shaking up human family tree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638218 - June 2021 (118 comments)
- anm89 5y agoOr he was a Trogdoooooooooorrrrrr
- ggm 5y agoCame for the burninator was not disappointed
- dr_dshiv 5y agoHumans used to have significantly bigger brains 35,000 years ago. Can you imagine? https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brain-has-been-getting-smaller-since-the-stone-age https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brai...
- likecarter 5y agoDoes not necessarily mean more intelligent.
- dredmorbius 5y agoGood point. It could well be that our brains are more efficient (or more specialised) than earlier human / proto-human brains. Given the prodigious energy expenditure of the human brain, any gain in efficiency or shedding of unnecessary capabilities could well be a net win.
- bpodgursky 5y agoI have always found this theory questionable because the shrinkage happened somewhat uniformly across disparate human populations. There's no reason that every significant human subpopulation would suddenly evolve more efficient brains at the same time.
- klyrs 5y agoThere's evolutionary pressure to reduce brain size because big heads make childbirth more injurious/lethal to the mom. I find it quite plausible that it would happen everywhere along a similar timeline.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoI see what you’re getting at, but wouldn’t the same pressure to reduce head size also inhibit the heads from getting big in the first place?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 5y agoI was originally thinking that a Sapiens/Denisovan hybrid of the sort we've seen elsewhere might be a possibility too but the skull is too old for that to make sense. I almost said "human/Denisovan hybrid" but really Denisovans are a sort of human too.
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoIt may also not be a new species. And a lot of pop science reporting "may" be questionable. On a side-note some Chinese anthropologists question the common human origin "Out of Africa" and instead suggest Chinese or East Asians had their own separate origin. And they seem to be really determined on finding evidence to this end, instead of looking at it from a neutral point of view. This sounds crazy but it's an absolute mainstream idea over there.
- modmans2nd 5y agoYep. They need that narrative to push superiority. Genetic be damned I guess.
- justicezyx 5y ago> some Chinese anthropologists question the common human origin "Out of Africa" and instead suggest Chinese or East Asians had their own separate origin Where are those claims? Do you have some examples of such claims.
- michaelmrose 5y agoThe idea that the modern Chinese are descendanded from Peking man from 770k years feeds the common myth that many people hold that their particular ethnic group is inherently different/superior. I found this article on the topic very interesting. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/is-peking-man-still-our-ancestorgenetics-anthropology-and-the-politics-of-racial-nationalism-in-china/F7D479FC994A854400A53E0E1B987236 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-stu...
- AlotOfReading 5y agoQuite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples.
- justicezyx 5y ago> Quite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples. Which of Jia Lanpo's work claimed this? I couldn't google one. Citations to Wu Liu's work would be great as well.