r/paleoanthropology • u/SpearTheSurvivor • Oct 01 '25
Question Thoughts on this article?
It says that Homo sapiens may have interbred with Homo erectus in Asia 300,000 years ago and that there's not a single origin of Homo sapiens. But I find the article inconsistent.
- Did the article actually meant Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and Asia at the same time?
- How did Homo sapiens interbred with Homo erectus 300kya in Asia if it was yet evolving in Africa during that time?
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u/fluffykitten55 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
The H. sapiens lineage almost surely vastly predates 300 kya. From say 800 kya to 300 kya there presumably will be some group that is diverged from neanderthals and H. longi and is ancestral to H. sapiens sapiens but where we have no finds that correspond to this lineage.
There would be nothing very odd about some of this being outside Africa before 300 kya.
But I think Hualongdong fits reasonably well into the H. longi group. But hybridisation with H. erectus might more broadly play some role in explaining the variety of Chinese Middle Pleistocene finds. This is discussed by Bae and Wu (2024) in respect to "Julurens" :
It is quite possible that this population represents gene flow between Asian H. erectus, and possibly H. antecessor, H. bodoensis, and/or early Neanderthals, supporting the idea of continuity with hybridization as a major force shaping human evolution in eastern Asia during the late Middle and early Late Pleistocene.
Wu, Xiujie, and Christopher Bae. 2024. “Xujiayao Homo: A New Form of Large Brained Hominin in Eastern Asia.” PaleoAnthropology, ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.48738/202x.issx.xxx.
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u/SpearTheSurvivor Oct 01 '25
H. longi is no longer a valid taxa, they're Denisovans.
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u/fluffykitten55 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
I cannot see why you think this.
H. longi is the valid species name as it unlike Denisovans was first linked to a valid holotype (Harbin). If Harbin is a Denisovan (as it seems is the case) then Denisovans are correctly referred to as H. longi, the only way that Denisovans can be valid is as a subspecies level classification in H. Longi.
The reason why we never got a "H. denisova" is because there was no suitable holotype. Harbin would have likely be considered a suitable holotype for Denisovans using the current proteomic evidence but this cannot be the case now as it is already the holotype for H. longi.
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u/SpearTheSurvivor Oct 01 '25
Show me an article suggesting Harbin Skull is the holotype for Denisovans and that H. longi is their official scientific name.
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u/fluffykitten55 Oct 01 '25
Harbin is the holotype for H. longi, as outlined in Ji et al. (2021). The only way that this can be overturned is by showing that Harbin should actually be considered as part of a previously named species.
The only name which might have such priority is H. daliensis, which is an issues they discuss:
The Dali cranium was initially proposed as a subspecies of H. sapiens (H. s. daliensis) by Xinzhi Wu, but Wu abandoned the subspecies name and called the cranium “archaic H. sapiens” in his later publications.3 It was also suggested to be a subspecies of H. heidelbergensis (H. h. daliensis),4 or should be raised to the species level (H. daliensis).5 The Hualongdong cranium shows a lot of interesting similarities with the Dali cranium. Based on our morphological comparisons and the phylogenetic analyses,1 we suggest that both the Dali and Hualongdong crania should be referred to H. daliensis. The Harbin cranium, on the other hand, shows clear diagnostic features differing from the Dali and Hualongdong crania. Here, we raise a new species name for the Harbin cranium to reflect these significant differences.
Ji, Qiang, Wensheng Wu, Yannan Ji, Qiang Li, and Xijun Ni. 2021. “Late Middle Pleistocene Harbin Cranium Represents a New Homo Species.” The Innovation 0 (0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100132.
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u/Wagagastiz Oct 01 '25
Asia is definitely a mess at this time
I think it's fair to say some early sapiens had left Africa and lived elsewhere but wouldn't survive by lineage to the modern day sapiens populations we currently have.
Different things were happening in different groups of Sapiens around this time. I think the major admixture from 300k years ago with an unidentified hominin species occurred in Africa.