1-million-year-old skull suggests Homo sapiens divergence pushed back 500,000 years. Yunxian (Meipu) 2 skull discovered in China in 1992, heavily crushed and distorted In 2025, researchers applied CT scanning and digital reconstruction techniques to restore the skull The individual lived around 1 million years ago
Yunxian 2 skull from China (discovered in 1990) got a digital makeover in 2025. CT scanning reveals a 1-million-year-old brain case as large as ours. If this Homo longi relative had modern-sized brains, our species may have split off much earlier than thought.
Key Facts
- Yunxian (Meipu) 2 skull discovered in China in 1992, heavily crushed and distorted
- In 2025, researchers applied CT scanning and digital reconstruction techniques to restore the skull
- The individual lived around 1 million years ago
- Reconstructed brain case is large, roughly the same size as modern humans
- Skull anatomy suggests it belongs to Homo longi lineage, a sister species to Denisovans
- If Yunxian (Meipu) 2 is a Denisovan-like lineage with large brain at 1 million years ago, Homo sapiens must have diverged earlier than previously thought
- Paleonthropoligist Chris Stringer suggests million-year-old Homo sapiens fossils likely exist but haven't been found yet
Related site: Yunxian (Meipu) — view location, images, and history on the Ancient Nerds map.
Source: We Just Found Something in China That Rewrites History by Michael Button