Modern Humans in China over 80,000 Years Ago - Implications

[Eboard10]

A new very interesting study was published. The findings show that teeth from fossils found in a cave in southern China are dated to between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago. This is the first time they found evidence of modern humans living in the region some 30,000-70,000 years earlier than in the Levant and in Europe.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15696.html#tables

The earliest unequivocally modern humans in southern China

Wu Liu, María Martinón-Torres, Yan-jun Cai, Song Xing, Hao-wen Tong, Shu-wen Pei, Mark Jan Sier, Xiao-hong Wu, R. Lawrence Edwards, Hai Cheng, Yi-yuan Li, Xiong-xin Yang, José María Bermúdez de Castro & Xiu-jie Wu

The hominin record from southern Asia for the early Late Pleistocene epoch is scarce. Well-dated and well-preserved fossils older than ~45,000 years that can be unequivocally attributed to Homo sapiens are lacking1, 2, 3, 4. Here we present evidence from the newly excavated Fuyan Cave in Daoxian (southern China). This site has provided 47 human teeth dated to more than 80,000 years old, and with an inferred maximum age of 120,000 years. The morphological and metric assessment of this sample supports its unequivocal assignment to H. sapiens. The Daoxian sample is more derived than any other anatomically modern humans, resembling middle-to-late Late Pleistocene specimens and even contemporary humans. Our study shows that fully modern morphologies were present in southern China 30,000–70,000 years earlier than in the Levant and Europe5, 6, 7. Our data fill a chronological and geographical gap that is relevant for understanding when H. sapiens first appeared in southern Asia. The Daoxian teeth also support the hypothesis that during the same period, southern China was inhabited by more derived populations than central and northern China. This evidence is important for the study of dispersal routes of modern humans. Finally, our results are relevant to exploring the reasons for the relatively late entry of H. sapiens into Europe. Some studies have investigated how the competition with H. sapiens may have caused Neanderthals’ extinction (see ref. 8 and references therein). Notably, although fully modern humans were already present in southern China at least as early as ~80,000 years ago, there is no evidence that they entered Europe before ~45,000 years ago. This could indicate that H. neanderthalensis was indeed an additional ecological barrier for modern humans, who could only enter Europe when the demise of Neanderthals had already started.

This study also lends more credence to the "Out of Asia" theory. In the summary, the authors note that the reason Homo sapiens populated Europe only later was due to the presence of Neaderthals in the region, making it harder for modern humans to settle there. However, what they fail to mention, as remarked by Dienekes, is that Neanderthals were also present in West Asia at the time. If these Homo sapiens found in China originally came from Africa, they would have had to pass through that region. The other point Dienekes raises is that the hominids found in China have equal levels of Neanderthal admixture to Europeans. If they supposedly traveled from Africa to Asia first, how are they supposed to have the same Neanderthal admixture if they moved to China and only later moved west where they out-competed the Neanderthals?

One would think that science would present an increasingly reasonable and consistent picture of the past, but it seems that we're a very long way from the point where the dust settles and the puzzle pieces start falling into place.

 

[Palinurus]

SOTT already carries an article about this topic taken from ABC News Australia:

http://www.sott.net/article/303975-Ancient-teeth-point-to-earliest-modern-humans-in-southern-China