In China discovered the remains of an ancient hominid

Paleontologists have discovered the remains of the ancient people in a cave in the southwest of China, which may belong to previously unknown species. A report about the discovery was published  in the journal PLoS One.

Three bones of ancient people were found in the cave of the Stag near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province in 1989, but fell into the hands of researchers only recently. The remains of the fourth instance found in the vicinity of the local villages. Age remains, researchers estimate that between 14 500 and 11 500 years, which means that their owners have lived together with Homo sapiens, are beginning to engage in agriculture in the area.

 

Found the skull and teeth are similar, but differ significantly from both the modern and the ancient people. They are individual lines of the two, in addition, possess unusual features. The authors do not dare yet to rank holders remains to any of the currently recognized species of human. Because of the fragments found in a cave animals, paleontologists have named their people deer, on which they apparently hunted.

So far in the Asian region did not find the remains of the age of less than 100 000 years. From this, many authors draw conclusions about the absence of hominids in Asia before the arrival of Homo sapiens from Africa. The results of this study suggest that perhaps it is not. The remains may belong to a previously unknown type of person who lived here until the end of the Ice Age about 11,000 years ago. On the other hand, it may be descendants bone unknown outcome wave Homo sapiens from Africa.

In the last decade, with the Asian region have been associated at least two major paleontological discoveries - the discovery of Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores and the sequencing of the human genome from Denisov cave in Siberia.