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Human remains from Zhirendong, South China, and modern human emergence in East Asia

  1. Xin-Zhi Wua
  1. aKey Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China;
  2. bState Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China;
  3. cGraduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
  4. dInstitute of Global Environmental Change, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China;
  5. eDepartment of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455;
  6. fChongzuo Biodiversity Research Institute, Peking University, Chongzuo 532209, China; and
  7. gDepartment of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130

  1. Contributed by Erik Trinkaus, September 24, 2010 (sent for review August 27, 2010)

Abstract

The 2007 discovery of fragmentary human remains (two molars and an anterior mandible) at Zhirendong (Zhiren Cave) in South China provides insight in the processes involved in the establishment of modern humans in eastern Eurasia. The human remains are securely dated by U-series on overlying flowstones and a rich associated faunal sample to the initial Late Pleistocene, >100 kya. As such, they are the oldest modern human fossils in East Asia and predate by >60,000 y the oldest previously known modern human remains in the region. The Zhiren 3 mandible in particular presents derived modern human anterior symphyseal morphology, with a projecting tuber symphyseos, distinct mental fossae, modest lateral tubercles, and a vertical symphysis; it is separate from any known late archaic human mandible. However, it also exhibits a lingual symphyseal morphology and corpus robustness that place it close to later Pleistocene archaic humans. The age and morphology of the Zhiren Cave human remains support a modern human emergence scenario for East Asia involving dispersal with assimilation or populational continuity with gene flow. It also places the Late Pleistocene Asian emergence of modern humans in a pre-Upper Paleolithic context and raises issues concerning the long-term Late Pleistocene coexistence of late archaic and early modern humans across Eurasia.

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: liuwu{at}ivpp.ac.cn or trinkaus{at}artsci.wustl.edu.

  • Author contributions: W.L., C.-Z.J., Y.-J.C., W.-S.P., D.-G.Q., Z.-S.A., and E.T. designed research; W.L., C.-Z.J., Y.-Q.Z., Y.-J.C., X.-J.W., and E.T. performed research; W.L., Y.-J.C., S.X., H.C., R.L.E., and E.T. analyzed data; and W.L., Y.-Q.Z., Y.-J.C., S.X., E.T., and X.-Z.W. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1014386107/-/DCSupplemental.

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