By : Satyaki Paul
Recently, fossilised remains of ancient human skullwere discovered from the nearby regions of the Songhua River of north-east China. The name that has been derived from the Long Jiang or Dragon River in the Heilongjiang province of China where the city of Harbin is located.The researchers published their findings in a journal named “The Innovation” wherein they observed that this skull can be over 146,000 years old.
The UK’s Natural History Museum notes that because of the distinguishing shape of the skull, which was found almost whole, some members of the research team have proposed that it can be declared asa part of a new species of the genus Homo. The size of the skull is comparable to that of modern humans and Neanderthals.
Of late, another team of researchers in Israel had also discovered a new species of human remains. And, they named it as “Nesher Ramla Homo”. According to the researchers, this species co-existed with the Homo sapiens around 100,000 years ago in the regions of Asia, Europe and Africa. They also co-existed with Neanderthals and Denisovans. Their findings were published in a journal named “Science”. The researchers also opined that this archaic Homo population had become skilled at the use of technology that was lately only associated with Homo sapiens or Neanderthals. Further, members of the species “Nesher Ramla Homo” could pursuit small and large game, they used wood for fuel, cooked and cooked meat, and upheld fires.
Both these findings are significant because they provide indication that there were cultural exchanges between diverse human lineages.However, there are numerous other unanswered questions as well—such as whether there was interbreeding among different human species. Numerous paleo-anthropologists suggested interbreeding, but direct evidence is yet to be found. In this context, the Natural History Museum also observes that crossbreeding with ancient humans permitted Homo sapiens to obtain genes that enhanced their chances of survival, and that some of these genes are present in modern humans even today.
For example: some of the DNA inherited from Neanderthals is supposed to be associated with boosting immunity in respect to coronavirus infections. A new PNAS study has observed that, genes that reduces the risk of developing severe COVID-19 by around 20% is genetic from Neanderthals. These genes, located on chromosome 12. Further, the study observes that enzymes produced by the Neanderthal variant of these genes are more efficient which helps protect against severe COVID19. This genetic variant was passed to humans around 60,000 years ago via interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals. Nonetheless, the genetic variant has increased in frequency over the last era and is now found in around half of people living outside Africa. And, in around 30% of individuals of Japan. The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).