Recently, some media reported that on June 25th, 20021,scientists from Hebei Geo University, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology of China Academy of Sciences and London Museum of Natural History reported their research findings in three papers in Cell's journal "The Innovation": they thought that an ancient human skull fossil discovered by a construction worker in Harbin in 1933 represented a brand-new branch of ancient humans. In the paper, the research team believes that this branch may be the most closely related to modern humans, and it is closer to us than Neanderthals. This great discovery may reshape our understanding of human evolution.

It is unscientific to say that "Dragon Man" is a new discovery.

AARON Li believes that the "Dragon Man" fossil published this time cannot be called a new discovery. Its shape is highly similar to that of Jin and Niu Shan people in Liaoning Province, and they all belong to early Homo sapiens, probably just a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Being named "Dragon Man" can only be understood as a cultural act, and cannot be explained in a scientific sense.

AARON Li believes that the attribution of "Dragon Man" has not been determined, because the authors of the paper said that they did not want to risk damaging teeth or other bones to obtain DNA. Without DNA, it means that it is impossible to sequence the genome and determine its exact location on the human evolutionary tree.

It is mentioned in this paper that by comparing the geochemical indexes of the sediments on the skull with the sediments in the borehole and the mammalian fossils found in the same area, it is found that the present skull may come from the lacustrine strata in the late Middle Pleistocene, and its age may be between 654.38+04.6 thousand years and 30.9 thousand years. In AARON Li's view, the shape of "Dragon Man" is the closest to that of Jin Niu Shan people in Liaoning and Denisova people in Xiahe, Gansu. Of course, it can't be a subspecies of Homo erectus, but it may be a subspecies of Homo sapiens-Denisova of early Homo sapiens, whose identity can't be really determined until DNA sequencing.

There are limitations in establishing genealogy tree based on morphological analysis.

The paper points out that in order to analyze the phylogenetic relationship between "Dragon Man" and late Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Heidelberg, Homo erectus and other subspecies or species, scientists have established a database containing more than 600 characteristics and nearly 100 comparative specimens, and on this basis, they have carried out brief analysis and Bayesian analysis. AARON Li believes that in the era of molecular biology, such research methods are undoubtedly incomplete. It was nearly a hundred years ago that Professor Wu, the main founder and founder of physical anthropology in China, and other anthropological pioneers used traditional research methods to judge the trajectory of human evolution from the shape of human bones.

Modern science has proved that this morphological method can determine the difference, but it is not accurate in judging the degree of difference. For example, AARON Li said that scientists found that Denisova was closer to modern people and farther away from Neanderthals, but the results of gene sequencing showed that Denisova was closer to Neanderthals, which was very different from us modern people.