拂去时光尘埃：从“龙人”之名到文明源起(2)

图为即梦AI生成的“远古中华大地场景”

在文化多元的今天，龙人的故事为我们思考文化认同提供了新视角。虽然它并未直接告诉我们“我们是谁”，但它深刻地提醒着我们“我们从何而来”。我们的祖先与龙人一样，都曾是这片土地上的过客与探索者。他们的存在，丰富了我们对“人类”这一概念的理解，也让我们脚下的土地因这段深邃的记忆而显得更加厚重。

虽然我们大多不是龙人血脉上的后裔，但我们无疑是这片孕育过无数生命奇迹的土地的文化继承者。作为这片土地的继承者，我们肩负着双重使命：以科学精神解读历史，以文化胸怀温存记忆。科学让历史说话，而文化让历史有了温度。在这个科技日新月异的时代，守护对文化根源的温情与敬意，或将成为我们面向未来的重要精神资源。

当来自远古东方的生命低语穿越时空抵达耳畔，它邀请我们以更谦卑的姿态理解人类在自然中的位置，对所有曾经存在过的智慧生命报以深沉敬意，并以此为基础，迈出走向未来的坚实步伐。

撰稿人：何博媛

Brushing Off the Dust of Time: From the Name "Homo longi" to the Origins of Civilization

Editor's Note: As scientists brush the dust from Homo longi skull fossil, we are not only witnessing a scientific breakthrough that rewrites the history of human evolution, but also a profound encounter with the ancient East. This ancient discovery pushes the geographical stage of Chinese civilization to a deeper historical dimension: for the hundreds of thousands of years before the appearance of writing, bronze, and city-states, this land was already the setting for a magnificent epic of intelligent life. Although Homo longi is not the direct creator of Chinese civilization, its existence profoundly impacts how we understand the origin and continuity of civilization. This dialogue across time not only concerns "who we are" but also how we comprehend this Eastern land that has carried countless life experiments.

On September 26, 2025, Beijing time, the internationally renowned academic journal Science published a landmark study completed by a multi-institutional team in China. Through high-precision CT reconstruction and geometric morphometric (GMM) analysis, researchers discovered that the Yunxian Man skull shares features such as a flat face, supraorbital torus, and cranial capacity with the Heilongjiang Homo longi skull, while being significantly different from Homo erectus. The study thus suggests that the "Yunxian Man" skull, previously considered Homo erectus, is actually an early representative of the "Homo longi" (Homo longi) lineage, which is closely related to the mysterious ancient human, the Denisovans. This conclusion not only significantly pushes back the divergence time of the modern human, Neanderthal, and Homo longi lineages, but also, beyond the scientific dimension, opens a new window for us to look back at the ancient history of the East.

As soon as Homo longi research was published, it sparked widespread heated discussion on social media. The focus of public debate was not only its scientific significance but also the name itself: "Is this our ancestor?" "Are we truly 'descendants of the Dragon'?" In fact, Homo longi was named after its discovery location, Heilongjiang Province. Although the name stems from a geographical concept, the combination of "Dragon" — a cultural symbol deeply embedded in collective memory—with a monumental discovery that rewrites human cognition, inevitably inspires a rich imagination that transcends the realm of science. This arises not from a rigorous scientific lineage, but from a profound resonance rooted in cultural psychology.

In the collective memory of Eastern civilization, the "Dragon" is never merely a fictional biological species; it is the ultimate symbol of power, auspiciousness, and national identity. From the jade dragon of the Hongshan culture to the Nine-Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City, from "Pangu, the sovereign, with a dragon head and a snake body" to "water need not be deep, for the presence of a dragon makes it sacred," this divine beast runs through the spiritual tapestry of Chinese civilization. Therefore, when "Dragon" and "Man" recombine in a scientific context, it ceases to be a cold academic label and becomes a marvelous point of contact connecting evolutionary history with cultural emotion.

The naming of Homo longi, beneath its superficial geographical logic, corresponds to the deepest cultural code of this land. It acts like a key, unintentionally opening a door to collective memory, allowing an ancient discovery to instantly gain life and resonance within our shared cultural context. This awakening of the cultural gene reflects, to some extent, our unremitting pursuit of our own cultural roots in an era of rapid technological development. In the tide of globalization, we need to confirm "who we are" more than ever, and Homo longi offers an opportunity to look back.