Hualongdong people

The Hualongdong people are extinct humans that lived in eastern China around 300,000 years ago during the late Middle Pleistocene. Discovered by a research team led by Xiujie Wu and Liu Wu, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, from the Hualong Cave (pinyin: huálóng dòng; lit.'flowery/elegant dragon cave') in Dongzhi County at Anhui Province in 2006, they are known from about 30 fossils that belong to 16 individuals. The first analysis of the skull fragments collected in 2006 suggested that they could be members of Homo erectus. For some of the specimens, their exact position as a human species is not known. More complete fossils found in 2015 indicate that they cannot be directly assigned to any Homo species as they also exhibit archaic human features. They are the first humans in Asia to have both archaic and modern human features. They are likely a distinct species that form a separate branch in the human family tree.