Skull found in China may be Homo longi, potentially revising understanding of human evolution

Today, Seth and Chris Stringer, friend of the show, discuss something that is very new on the Paleoanthropological scene that you may have heard of recently!...

The story of Dragon Man begins more than ninety years ago, with an extraordinary discovery that almost disappeared forever. In 1933, in the city of Harbin in northeastern China, a Chinese labourer reportedly discovered an unusually large and remarkably well-preserved human skull. At the time, the region was under Japanese occupation, and according to the story later told by his family, the man decided not to turn the skull over to the occupying authorities. Instead, he hid it at the bottom of an abandoned well. And there it stayed. For decades, scientists had no idea the skull existed.