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Ancient Human Fossils found in China - Zhirendong cave

Ancient Human Fossils found in China Challenge Out-of-Africa Theory

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The origin of human beings (anatomically modern Homo sapiens) and their movement across the globe have been fundamental questions in human evolutionary studies for over a century. While the accepted theory states that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa about 60,000 years ago, new archaeological findings are consistently challenging this now outdated perspective. A report published in New Scientist draws attention to recent discoveries in China and south-east Asia, which suggest that Homo sapiens inhabited the region long before the Out-of-Africa Theory would have us believe.

Last month, Christopher Bae of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Wei Wang of the Guangxi Museum of Nationalities in Nanning, China, and their colleagues announced the discovery of two teeth from the Luna cave in China's Guangxi Zhuang region, which testing suggests belonged to an early Homo sapiens. The study, published in Quaternary International, revealed that calcite crystals, which formed as water flowed over the teeth and the cave floor, date them to between 70,000 and 125,000 years ago.  So Bae and Wang say they are evidence of an early wave of modern humans in eastern Asia.

However, this is not the only discovery of human fossils outside Africa to upset conventional notions of when our ancestors migrated out of Africa.  In the last decade, archaeologists found an upper jaw from an early modern human dating back 150,000 years in Misliya cave, located in what is now Israel, as well as a jawbone and two molars from Zhirendong, a cave in Guizhou province, China, which dates back around 100,000 years.

A Homo Sapiens fossil from Misliya Cave

A Homo Sapiens fossil from Misliya Cave. Image source.

"There is solid evidence of modern humans at Tam Pa Ling [in Laos] around 50,000 or 60,000 years ago, and the Zhirendong mandible has modern features," said Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, who was involved in the identification of the jawbone and teeth. "So yes, modern humans were present in at least south-east Asia and south China by somewhere in this time range."

Zhirendong cave

Zhirendong, where fossils belonging to Homo sapiens have been found. Image source.

Findings such as these should drastically alter the time line of human migration, however, an earlier migration out of Africa is still very much a minority perspective. Others argue that the discoveries may suggest that Homo sapiens evolved separately in different parts of the world at around the same time.

Whatever the case may be, it is time to abandon previous notions that Homo sapiens were not present in other regions of the world before 60,000 years ago. Enough evidence now exists to seriously challenge this idea; proponents of the Out-of-Africa theory must re-evaluate current perspectives and explore other possibilities in order to make way for a new understanding of the origins of our species.

Featured image: Several views of a human jawbone and molars found in a Chinese cave. Credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

By April Holloway

 

Comments

It is dumbfolded to stick to the OOA thesis when those early precusors reffered to will be revealed instead as the precursors of Chimps and Gorillas that came in from Asia as bipedal apes, not hominids.

There are older fossils found in Asia, but the protectors of the OOA thesis will not accept those. There is a totalitarian and corrupt power structure amongst those Archeaologists and Anthropologists that clings to this notion.

The complete misperception lies in that the human precursors should be looking like a Chimp, when rather the Chimps are knucklewalkers because they evolved from bipedal precursors looking more like humans.

The "Out of Africa Hypotheses" is as as sound as ever. While it may be true that modern humans are a jigsaw of bits and pieces of closely related hominids, whose travels took them, from Africa to Europe and Asia (Neanderthals, Denisovans etc.), in several waves, possibly some 2 million to 500K years ago, being so closely related, and with reproduction being so important for survival of the tribe, admixture did occur. We all know what happens in the real world when boy meets girl. Of course, hybridization is not the same as the "Multi Regional Hypotheses", coined by Milford H. Wolpoff, Alan Thorne and Xinzhi Wu, in 1984, whereby, as the Chinese like to continually point out - Europeans evolved from Neanderthals and the Chinese (Asians) evolved from Homo erectus. Basically Chinese physical anthropologists believe that the Chinese people are a separate species, to that of Africans and Europeans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans

very interesting, I am just starting to focus on this at school, I guess we won't know truely until there is enough evidence if there is going to be more found

angieblackmon's picture

i think we're going to keep finding new evidence until we exhaust the planet and find "patient 0/Adam/whoever" you want to call him/her. 

love, light and blessings

AB

Tsurugi's picture

So when new data forces changes in existing theory, that is "adjusting assessments", but any consideration that the new data may point to alternative theory is "jumping to unfounded conclusions"?

Isn't any "assessment" needing "adjusting" based on new evidence, actually an unfounded conclusion being corrected? Could we not say that entirely different theories inspired by the new evidence are merely "alternative assessments"?

You said "All precursors to early humans are found in Africa."
That statement seems to imply that no precursors yet discovered outside Africa means there will never be such a discovery, and that such discoveries are definitely human ancestors. Neither of those implications are valid conclusions...but I would grant they are valid assessments based on incomplete data.

The point being, any theory, when considered as a conclusion, is unfounded. Characterizing theories you disagree with as conclusions in order to discredit them while waving away errors in theories you prefer as merely assessment adjustments is not a valid argument, it's just a sneaky debate tactic based on semantic slight of hand.

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April

April Holloway is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan.

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