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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

We're now treating [a new bone found] as part of a separate group [phys.org], distinct from the bones from Red Deer Cave, or Maludong, and one that we now think is indeed very likely to be a hybrid. And direct dating on human bone now confirms that the specimen is only 10,500 years old.

If we're correct, then either there were archaic humans [phys.org] still around at that time in Southwest China who interbred with modern humans, or their hybrid features persisted longer after interbreeding occurred because of isolation and perhaps through the action of natural selection or genetic drift.

Our study published this week [plos.org] outlines detailed work on a thigh bone or femur from Maludong, located only 6km Southwest of the city of Mengzi, near the Northern Vietnam border.

Like the skull bones from the site, it is also dated to about 14,000 years old. But unlike them, it provides a much clearer indication of what at least some of the Red Deer Cave people bones might be.

Our work shows that the thigh bone strongly resembles very ancient species like early Homo erectus or Homo habilis, which lived around 1.5 million years ago or more in Africa.

Like these pre-modern humans, the Maludong femur is very small. The shaft is narrow, with the outer layer of the shaft (or cortex) very thin, the walls of the shaft are reinforced (or buttressed) in areas of high strain, the femur neck is long, and the place of muscle attachment for the primary flexor muscle of the hip (the lesser trochanter) is very large and faces strongly backwards.

A new contender to join the ranks of Denisovans and Homo floresiensis, the hobbit-like people, as sub-species of humans.

Original Submission