...researchers studying an ancient human skull found in China have controversially classified it as a new species - dubbed Dragon Man - which might be an even closer relative to modern humans than are Neanderthals3,4. Ancestor to Neanderthals Since 2000, the view of human evolution during the past half a million years has become ever-more complicated as researchers have added to the list of species in the genus Homo that lived in the Middle and Late Pleistocene, overlapping in time with modern humans (H. sapiens) and Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis). In the study, Ji and colleagues say that, given the Harbin skull's similarity to some early H. sapiens fossils, H. longi might be an even closer relative to modern humans than Neanderthals are.