Enigmatic human remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of southwest China and the complex evolutionary history of east Asians

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.

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).