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18 September 2023

A new human species? Mystery surrounds 300,000-year-old fossil

A chinless jawbone from eastern China that displays both modern and archaic features could represent a new branch of the human family tree.

Dyani Lewis

Dyani Lewis
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A fossilized jawbone discovered in a cave in eastern China bears a curious mix of ancient and modern features, according to a detailed analysis that compares it with dozens of other human specimens. The finding, published in theJournal of Human Evolution, indicates that the 300,000-year-old bone could have belonged to an as-yet undescribed species of archaic human¹.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02924-8

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