First Homo heidelbergensis fossil reported from China

Back in September 2018, China daily reported that the very first skull, morphologically resembling Homo heidelbergensis had been found in China.

Considering my recent post (see here), which touched on the morphological variability of early crania from the region, I thought this an interesting report.

Reported by Zhang Yaodong in China Daily (2018):

“A fossil skull of Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct species of humans, was believed to have been discovered in Northeast China and is considered to be one of the most complete fossils of ancient humans ever found, experts said.

This is the first discovery of a Homo heidelbergensis fossil in Asia, Ni Xijun, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at Chinese Academy of Sciences, was quoted as saying on the website of Hebei GEO University.”

Although, some details of how and when the discovery was made, were given on the China Daily website, a little more detail was available, in German, from Antropus (2018)

“The discovery history of the skull is also exciting. An agricultural worker found it in 1933 while tilling, a field and handed it over to the owner of the farm. He thought the skull looked odd and picked it up.

The farm owner, when the Japanese occupied China in 1937, he hid it in a safe place (a well) so it would not fall into the hands of the invaders.

A few months ago, the man's grandson contacted Professor Ji Qiang and told him about it. He was amazed when he looked at the fossil. Because the grandson also had a detailed description of where the skull was found, they now want to dig there to expose the found layer from which the fossil originates.”

The skull in question:

I sincerely hope more remains are discovered, in the near future. Hebei university (2018), have in fact announced, that they have in fact already receive funding for the project.

References

Yaodong, Z. China Daily (2018). “Fossil skull may hold answers to evolution of human species.” At http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201809/18/WS5ba05139a31033b4f4656968.html

Accessed 16.02.19

Antropus (2018) at:  http://antropus.de/Erster-Homo-heidelbergensis-in-China-entdeckt.artikel

Accessed 16.02.19

Hebei university (2018) at: http://eng.hgu.edu.cn/info/1014/1371.htm

Accessed 16.02.19

Picture credit:

Hebei university (2018)