The hominin record from southern Asia during the Late Pleistocene (between about 12,000 and 126,000 years ago) is scarce. Well-dated, well-preserved fossils that are older than 45,000 years and that can be confidently attributed to Homo sapiens have been lacking. Recent excavations of Fuyan Cave in Daoxian, southern China, yielded a trove of 47 human teeth and fossils from various extinct and living mammals. Wu Liu, María Martinón-Torres, Xu-jie Wu and colleagues report that the teeth date to more than 80,000 years ago, although they may be as old as 120,000 years; detailed morphological analysis supports their attribution to anatomically modern humans. The teeth are smaller than other Late Pleistocene specimens from Asia and Africa and bear a closer resemblance to Late Pleistocene Europeans and even contemporary modern humans, the authors find.
The study indicates that humans with fully modern morphological features were present in southern China 30,000 to 70,000 years earlier than in the eastern Mediterranean and Europe. In addition, the results suggest that southern China may have been inhabited by more derived populations than central and northern China during this period. The work may also provide insights into the dispersal of modern humans, and, in particular, the reason for the relatively late entry of modern humans into Europe.
ARTICLE DETAILS
DOI: 10.1038/nature15696
Corresponding Authors:
María Martinón-Torres
University College London, London, United Kingdom
Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 20 7679 4907
Wu Liu
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China
Email: [email protected]
Xiu-jie Wu
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China
Email: [email protected]
N&V author
Robin Dennell
University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Email: [email protected]
