In the 1930s, people in northeast China found a skull. But it wasn't just any old skull. It was massive, well preserved, with a mish-mash of different features. Obviously knowing that this was an important find, the person who found it tossed it down a well where it was recently rediscovered. Several studies have determined that it is the skull of a man who died around 146,000 years ago, and one has even claimed that it should be named its own species: Homo longi.
The reason for all the commotion is its array of both modern and archaic features. The skull is squat and wide, and its one remaining tooth has three roots, which are all features commonly found in older fossils. However, it also has delicate cheekbones that are low on the face, which looks more like us. When researchers ran algorithms to try to give it a place on the hominins tree, the resulting location was closer to our own species, Homo sapiens, than the Neanderthals.
Still, not all scientists agree that it warrants a new species. Some say that the odd characteristics are unique to the individual, or that it should be group under the Denisovans. Whatever the case is, the discovery shows that as we make more discoveries, evolutionary trees will only get more complicated.
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