One possible member of the new species H. juluensis isn’t a newcomer to science by any stretch. Denisovians—first identified in 2010 via DNA extracted from a young girl’s fingerbone found in Siberia—have never been given a species classification, but Bae believes that they could belong to this new species.

The research ties up some loose ends about different types of human-like species that shared the Earth with us in the late Middle and early Late Pleistocene, roughly from 300,000 to 50,000 years ago.

Researchers may have discovered evidence of a new human species called Homo juluensis which existed millions of years ago at the same time as homo sapiens, in what is modern-day China. Homo juluensis are thought to have lived in eastern Asia around 300,