Headlines in 2012 reported the possible discovery of “a new human species”. The bones were from Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces, in southern China, and some came from an individual that lived a mere 11,000 years ago. News stories were illustrated with an artist’s conception of this prehistoric person. A short-cropped beard juts beneath his mustacheless face, trailing down onto hair-covered shoulders and arms.
A 2014 Australian documentary used the label, “Enigma Man”. But the name that caught on was the “Red Deer Cave people”.
During the last two years, DNA evidence cracked the enigma. These ancient people were not another species. Nor were they hybrids of undiscovered human relatives. In fact, the Red Deer Cave people weren’t even a single people.
Red Deer Cave people explained by John Hawkes..