Ancient Skull Found in China Might Be Homo Erectus

Ancient Skull Found in China Might Be Homo Erectus
The million-year-old skull, dubbed “Yunxian Man 3,” is extraordinarily well-preserved compared to previous finds.
By Joshua Rapp LearnJan 30, 2023 11:00 AM
In September, Chinese researchers announced that they had found an ancient human skull earlier in the year. It was discovered about a dozen miles outside of Yunyang (formerly known as Yunxian) in central China — the same area where two other skulls were found in decades past.
Like its predecessors, the most recent find, dubbed “Yunxian Man 3” by some, likely dates to around 1 million years ago. And it seems to be in the best condition yet.

“The Yunxian fossils are the oldest in mainland Asia,” says Amélie Vialet, a paleoanthropologist with the National Museum of Natural History in Paris who has worked on some of the previous remains. The discovery of a well-preserved third skull could reveal much about the development of our ancient ancestors.
These skulls also appear to have flatter faces than Neanderthals. And they’re very different from some of the next-nearest hominins in China, found near Beijing and dated to around 500,000 years ago. Half a million years is a long time, though, so it’s possible that the latest remains represent an ancestral group to these Beijing remains, Vialet says.