Enigmatic human remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of southwest China and the complex evolutionary history of east Asians
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Date
2012-08-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Australian Geosciences Council
Abstract
The Upper Pleistocene hominin fossil record of East Asia is poorly known due to a scarcity of
well-described, reliably classified and accurately dated fossils. In 2008, we started a joint project
involving six Chinese and five Australian institutions to examine the later Pleistocene human record
from southwest China. The region has been identified from genetic research as a hotspot of human
diversity, and has yielded a number of human remains thought to derive from Pleistocene deposits. We
prepared, reconstructed, described and dated a new partial skeleton from a consolidated sediment
block collected in 1979 from the site of Longlin Cave (Guangxi Province). We also undertook new
excavations at Maludong (Yunnan Province) to clarify the stratigraphy and dating of a large sample of
mostly undescribed human remains from the site. Both samples probably derive from the same
population, exhibiting an unusual mixture of modern human traits, characters probably plesiomorphic
for later Homo, and some unusual features. We dated charcoal with AMS radiocarbon dating and
speleothem with the Uranium-series technique and the results show both samples to be from the
Pleistocene-Holocene transition: ∼14.3–11.5 ka. At nearby sites, some modern humans had already
begun the economic transition to agriculture by this time. We suggest the Longlin-Maludong humans
represent either a late-surviving archaic population or a previously unknown modern human group who
colonised East Asia probably without leaving descendants. The archaeological record of Maludong
indicates these humans were engaging in complex behaviours, including ochring bones and shells and
manufacturing containers from human skulls.
Description
Keywords
Humans, Fossils, Pleistocene epoch, Asia, China, Sampling, Carbon 14, Archaeology, Archaeological specimens
Citation
Curnoe, D., Ji, X., Herries, A, I. R., Bai, K., Taçon, P. S. C., Bao, Z., Fink, D., Zhu, Y., Hellstrom, J., Luo, Y., Cassis, G., Su, B., Wroe, S., Hong, S., Parr, W. C. H., Huang, S., & Rogers, N. (2012). Enigmatic human remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of southwest China and the complex evolutionary history of east Asians. Paper presented to the 34th International Geological Congress 2012, "Unearthing our Past and Future - Resourcing Tomorrow". 5-10 August 2012 . Brisbane, Australia. (pp. 2744).