MessageToEagle.com – A new mysterious human species has been uncovered by archaeologists.
Known as the Red Deer Cave people, these beings co-existed with our ancestors as recently as 11,000 – 14,000 years ago.
In March 2012, Australian paleoanthropologist Darren Curnoe and Chinese palaeontologist Ji Xueping announced the startling discovery of prehistoric human remains from a remote cave in southwest China. Unearthed in 1989 by mine workers in southern Yunnan, they were dubbed the “Red Deer Cave people” as they lay next to the bones of the animals that had onced roamed the hills and caves, and they were unlike any human remains known to science. They included a skull with holes drilled in both sides.
The remains of the ”Red Deer Cave people” reveal that they were similar, yet very physically different from us. Since they are younger than our Neanderthal relatives a number of seriously interesting questions arise. Were they really another human species? And if so, what happened to them? Why did they die out? How did they live? What were their interactions with our own early relatives?
Darren Curnoe points out that 1250 cm3 is the average brain size for modern humans.
In comparison to modern humans in the late Pleistocene when the Red Deer Cave People were running around, that average was between 1400 and 1600 cm3
The individuals had rounded brain cases with prominent brow ridges.
Their skull bones were quite thick. Their faces were quite short and flat and tucked under the brain, and they had broad noses.
“The fossils just don’t fit with the dominant view in science at the moment about who was around 11,000 years ago or 14,000 years ago, how they relate to us, and how we think of ourselves as humans in relation to nature.
We tend to think of ourselves as special. So it raises some pretty deep and challenging questions, “Darren Curnoe says.
Dr Curnoe and colleagues put forward two possible scenarios in their PLoS One paper for the origin of the Red Deer Cave population.
One posits that they represent a very early migration of a primitive-looking Homo sapiens that lived separately from other forms in Asia before dying out.
Another possibility contends that they were indeed a distinct Homo species that evolved in Asia and lived alongside our own kind until remarkably recently.
A third scenario being suggested by scientists not connected with the research is that the Red Deer Cave people could be hybrids.
“It’s possible these were modern humans who inter-mixed or bred with archaic humans that were around at the time,” explained Dr Isabelle De Groote, a palaeoanthropologist from London’s Natural History Museum.
“The other option is that they evolved these more primitive features independently because of genetic drift or isolation, or in a response to an environmental pressure such as climate.”
The implications of the discovery for understanding the evolution of our own species, and the broader human story, are profound.
The scientific orthodoxy is that our modern human ancestors inhabited east Asia only after the disappearance of earlier ancient humans. The existence of the Red Deer Cave people is evidence that the truth may be something else entirely. Our own species may have coexisted with the Red Deer Cave people until very recently, for tens of thousands of years.
Currently attempts are being made to extract DNA from the remains.
Copyright © MessageToEagle.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of MessageToEagle.com