A historical gathering

1. Xuetangliangzi site, Shiyan, Hubei province, from about 1 million years ago

The million-year-old human skull, found in May in Yunyang district (formerly Yunxian county) of Shiyan, is the best preserved skull fossil of its time ever discovered in the hinterland of Eurasian continent, providing key information in the study of Homo erectus.

The Xuetangliangzi site is famous for a milestone discovery of two hominid crania in 1989 and 1990. The two fossils, dating to between 800,000 and 1.1 million years ago, were named the No 1 and No 2 skulls of Yunxian Man by scientists, but they were found to be severely damaged.

However, the newly found No 3 skull is in a good condition and was buried in the same strata of the previous two. It will therefore fill in gaps of related studies on the origins of human beings and offer monumental impetus to decode the relationship between the evolution of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens in East Asia.

Laboratory-based follow-up research of molecular biology is still ongoing, and other scientific approaches are being used to analyze the natural environment of its time.