Featuring a mosaic of modern and archaic traits, a human population unlike any other lived in southwest China between 11,500 and 14,500 years ago, new research has revealed. Dubbed the Red Deer Cave people, they might have belonged to a previously unknown species that shared the Asian continent with Homo sapiens until relatively recent times.

Two different dating techniques revealed they were around between 11,500 and 14,500 years ago, at the end of the last ice age.