Red Deer Cave People: A new species of Human

Red Deer Cave People

It seems like a new species of Human has been discovered in very short time after the discovery of the Denisovans, another newly discovered species of archaic humans. The remains of at least four stone aged individuals were pulled from a cave in South West China and are believed to be a new species of Homo sapiens sapiens, they have been christened the 'Red Deer Cave People' and have been estimated to have lived up to 11,500 years ago. They displayed a mix of archaic and modern human features, however they have skulls that are so unique they don't match any type of human skull dating back to 150,000 years ago.

Skull found in China

Different to Modern Humans

Their discovery is particularly intriguing because they are the most recently discovered human remains which do not closely resemble modern humans today. They are different to modern humans because they have jutting jaws, prominent brow ridges, large molars, thick skulls and broad noses. The research team which investigated the discovery suggested that the Red Deer Cave people could be part of an evolutionary line that arrived in Asia early but failed to contribute genetically to modern Asian populations. It is also particularly intriguing that they lived at the same time as relatively modern humans, suggesting that they either could not contribute genetically or lived in complete isolation from the Homo sapiens sapiens population. They were christened the Red Deer People because of the large number of Red Deer fossils found around their remains, suggesting that these humans fed on Red Deer, an animal which is also extinct today. Their discovery has added increased momentum to the modern human origins debate. 

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