Ancient Chinese Skull Suggests Western Asia Origin for Homo sapiens and Reveals Black Hole Winds

Short Summary

In this New Scientist episode, a Chinese skull known as Yunshan Tu is reanalyzed with advanced imaging, suggesting an ancestral lineage for Denisovans and possibly a Western Asia origin for Homo sapiens, reshaping the Africa-centric narrative. The discussion places the three groups Homo sapiens Neanderthals and Denisovans into a revised family tree and highlights a potential 1.3 million year split. The program also tackles misinformation from the US on paracetamol during pregnancy and autism, with expert critique of the links and the real public health concerns around fever management in pregnancy. Finally, new evidence from the center of our galaxy Sagittarius A* reveals hot winds launched from the black hole, offering insights into galaxy evolution. Experts share what this means for future fossil hunts and astronomical observation.

Overview

The New Scientist podcast delves into the Yunshan Tu skull from central China, a fossil initially classified as Homo erectus that has now been reinterpreted using contemporary imaging techniques. By reconstructing the degraded cranium with CT scanning and digital fragment separation, researchers compared Yunshan Tu to 56 other hominin fossils, revealing that it aligns most closely with the Denisovan lineage rather than the Homo erectus profile. This finding pushes back the origin of Homo sapiens and reshapes our understanding of the relationships among Homo sapiens Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Ancient DNA and Fossil Morphology Intersect

The analysis suggests a three-way split among modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans occurring over a million years ago, with the initial divergence around 1.3 million years ago. This contrasts with the mainstream narrative derived primarily from ancient DNA, which places the major splits closer to 600,000 years ago and suggests Neanderthals diverged before our lineage remained in Africa before expanding. The Yunshan Tu skull appears to fall into the Denisovan group, indicating that early Denisovan-like hominins and our own species may share a deeper common ancestry than previously thought.

Chris Stringer and colleagues emphasize that while Africa-based ancestry remains robust for the most recent human lineage, the new fossil data invite revisiting the geographic origin of the earliest ancestral stock that gave rise to Homo sapiens Neanderthals and Denisovans. The debate echoes earlier shifts in paleoanthropology when Asia yielded pivotal hominin discoveries and Africa's role in early evolution was clarified only later by genetics and more fossils.

Gaps in the Fossil Record

A striking implication is the vast period, up to about a million years, with little fossil evidence before the oldest Homo sapiens remains. This underscores the need for renewed field work across Eurasia and Africa, plus integrating fossil evidence with genetic data to tell a coherent story. The researchers caution that fossil interpretation is complex and that future finds could adjust the proposed timeline and branching order.

Health Policy and Autism Claims

The episode also scrutinizes two US policy moves around autism during the Trump administration, including a warning label on paracetamol use in pregnancy and the approval of leucovorin for a subset of autism cases. Medical experts challenge the causative link between paracetamol and autism, citing inconsistent evidence and sibling studies that do not support a causal relationship. The discussion highlights the risk of misinforming pregnant people about fever management and emphasizes that fever can be harmful to fetal development if left untreated. The leucovorin discussion points to early, modest signals rather than established efficacy for autism, cautioning against overinterpretation of preliminary studies.

Astronomical Winds from Sagittarius A*

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array have identified hot winds emanating from the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, the first clear detection of such winds in our galaxy. This finding, energy equivalent to tens of thousands of suns, helps explain how black holes interact with their surrounding gas and influence star formation and galaxy evolution. The image analysis around the circumnuclear disk reveals cold gas near the black hole alongside a hot wind cone, offering a new avenue to monitor black hole activity over time and possibly even predict shifts in accretion and feedback processes.

Future Directions

Experts advocate for integrated analyses that combine morphological fossils with genetic data, expanded fossil collection in under-sampled regions, and ongoing monitoring of Sagittarius A* to understand its role in the Milky Way’s history. The discussion also anticipates improvements in imaging technology and the possibility of moving beyond static pictures to dynamic movies of black hole behavior, as observational networks grow and techniques refine.