East Asia – The researchers noted that the brains of the Chinese skulls appear to be larger than those of the Georgian fossils, even though they are similar in age. (Image: Science Advances) Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known evidence of ancient human relatives in East Asia.

Three skulls of Homo erectus found in central China are now dated to be about 1. 77 million years old. Article continues below video The findings were published this week in the journal Science Advances.

These fossils, known as Yunxian skulls, were discovered between 1989 and 2022 in Hubei province. For years, researchers debated his true age.

Earlier estimates suggested that they were about one million years old. The date that changed the timeline Christopher Bay, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and co-author of the study, described his reaction to the results as “complete surprise.

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