This is a long term project being carried out by Dr Rob Walsh, to research and assess a number of the ancient Chinese hominin sites/discoveries. This is a summary of what's happened so far........
Preface
In light of recent discoveries in China, I am attempting to put in order, the older hominin finds that have occurred in China.
Over many years, China has laid claim to an ancient human occupation, but this has largely been dismissed by western scientists.
We have tended to follow the theories that humanity evolved exclusively in Africa, and I still believe in the case of Homo sapiens that is largely still true. A multiregional evolution of our species in Africa.
However, I, as many scientists, now am having to rethink about the vast assemblage of hominin related finds in China, and put them in a viable context.
The finds I shall be very briefly be reviewing in this project include:
Shangchen at 2.1 mya
Yuanmou at 1.7 mya
Nihewan at 1.66 myya
Longgupo at 1.4 myya
Lantian at 1.63 mya
I shall also take a brief look at the other not so contentious Chinese sites of:
Bose 803,000 years
Zhoukoudian 780,000 years
Yunnan 600,000 years
By the end of this project I hope to have sorted out a viable chronology for hominins in China, and developed a hypothesis of where they came from.
One – Shangchen
Here at the foothills of the Qinling mountains artefacts betraying hominin occupation were discovered. The team that discovered them was led by Professor Zhaoyu Zhu of the Chinese academy of Sciences. The artefacts, stone tools and bone, dated at 2.12 million years old, challenge the theory that hominins left Africa at only 1.9 million years (Homo ergaster).
The stone tools were discovered in 2018 at a locality called Shangchen in the southern Chinese loess plateau.
Level 15 tools assemblage dates to 1.5 million years.
Level 21 tools dates to 1.73 million years.
Level 28, has lithic assemblages at 1.9 to 2.12 million years old, these tools are older than hominin discoveries in Indonesia and Dmanisi in Georgia.
The artefacts discovered include scrapers, cobble, hammer stones and pointed pieces. All shown signs of flaking and are made from quartzite. Fragments of animal bone were also found.
80 stone artefacts were initially discovered in 11 separate stratigraphic layers, with a further 16 found in layers of loess.
The 17 layers of loess and fossil soils were formed during a million year old period. The layers containing the tools were magnetically dated to 1.2 to 2.12 years old, showing hominins occupied the plateau during this time period.
Two – Yuanmou
Two incisors were found near Danawu village in a southwestern province of Yunnan called Yuanmou County. Stone artefacts and worked bone were also discovered at the site.
The assemblage was discovered in 1965 by Fang Qian a geologist.
Based on palaeomagnetic dating of the surrounding rock matrix, the age of the site was dated to 1.7 million years old.
There was much debate on the age of the site, but in 1985 the site was again redated and confirmed to be 1.7 million years old.
The stone tools found at Yuanmou ware made of quatz. Found near the teeth and stone tools were lithic cores and scrapers. These were in the same stratified horizon and therefore attributed to the hominins at Yuanmou.
In 1973, three more stone tools were discovered. These were again quartz scrapers.
The two incisors are large and robust compared with modern humans, and are assigned to Homo erectus. The incisors have a prominent tubercle on the lingual surface of the crown, with ridges extending from the tubercle to the incisive edge on the mesial and lateral sides. Between these ridges the tooth appears scooped out, with fine projections extending from the tubercle into the scooped out surface. The tooth roots are robust and flattened antero-posteriorly.
Three – Nihewan
Stone tools have been found at Xiaochangliang in the Nihewan Basin area, Hebei, China.
The tools include side and end scrapers, burins, notches and disc cores. The age of the tools have been magnetostratigraphically dates to 1.36 million years.
The site was discovered in 1923 by geologist George Barbour, but it was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who in 1935 found flint tools and establishes a million year old date for the site.
From 1972 to 1978 more than 200 stone tools were excavated together with bone tools.
Added to the site of Xiaochangliang, in the Nihewan basin are other sites containing similar stone tools. They are Xiantai at 1.36 million years, Banshan at 1.32 million years, Feiliang at 1.2 million years and Donggutuo at 1.1 million years, Shangshazui at 1.6 million years and Majuangou at 1.66 million years.
All these Nihewan basin sites have greatly increased our knowledge of Chines hominin occupation in the Lower Palaeolithic. It seems hominins were quite prolific in Northern China at around 1-1.3 million years ago.
Majuangou is an incredible archaeological site in the Nihewan Basin. Lithic artefacts
Have been excavated from three layers.
MJG Layer 1: is 0.5m to 1.55mya
MJG layer 2: is 0.4m to 1.64mya.
MJG Layer 3: is 0.5m to 1.66mya
The flakes from Majuangou show clear striking platforms and bulbs of percussion.
In the early layers, the bipolar technique is present as in lithic assemblages of the Xiaochangliang site.
Dating to 1.66mya is the site of Majuangou III is the oldest well-dated site in Northern China.
Nearly 1,000 lithic artefacts have been recovered from the three layers. These include cores, flakes and retouched pieces. These represent Mode I tool technology.
Cutmarks on mammal long bones (Mammuthus trogontherii) have been identified at Majuanguo III.
Whereas doubts still remain over the other sites mentioned in this research project, such as Longgupo (1.4 mya) and Yuanmou (1.7mya), the amazing stratigraphy of the Nihewan basin, along with lithic assemblages, and bio-stratigraphic data, means there are little concerns over the correct dating of the Nihewan basin sites.
Indeed Magnetostratigraphy and ESR have both been used to further calibrate these dates.
In younger sites at Nihewan, sixteen fossilised human bone fragments, mainly cranium, found in excavation dating from 1977 to 1979 were discovered, dating to between 104,000 and 225,000 years old. They belonged to a dozen men, woman, young and older, basically with a lifespan of 30 years.
A tooth from a child and a partial mandible were also excavated, with the tooth showing signs of tooth decay due to the high volume of fluorine present in ground water etc.
One skull fragment had a small hole in it, which scientists think could be an ancient 100,000 year old craniotomy.
The morphology of the tooth and in general the hominin bones discovered, suggest a late form of Home erectus in Northern China. If this is confirmed, then these late dates for H erectus, align with those of Ngandong in java, which were 117,000-108,000 years old.
Recently in 2001, younger evidence of Homo occupation in Nihewan was released. Tiny blades (not microblades) made from ground stone were excavated with the usage of red ocre. These dated back circa 40,000 years. The site excavated is called Xiamabei.
Four – Longgupo
The hominin find at Longgupo cave, Wushan County, Chongquing was made in 1986 by a team of Chinese scientists led by Huang Wanpo.
The assemblage was three fore-teeth, two molars and the left side of a mandible.
Along with the hominin finds were animal fossils including teeth from a Gigantopithecus and a pygmy panda Ailuropoda microta.
The mandible and teeth were biostratigraphy dated by the presence of other faunal remains including Sinomastadon, Nestoritherium, and Equus yannanensis.
Archaeomagnetic was also applied and confirmed the contextual dates of 1.78 – 1.96 million years ago. More recent dating techniques give an even older date of 2 million years for the hominin assemblage.
Excavations carried out in the 2000s, have yielded stone tools and species of mammals suggesting the hominins existed in a sub-tropical forest environment.
It must be mentioned that scientists like Milford Wolpoff, Jeffrey Schwartz and Ian tattersall claim the teeth of Longgupo are those of an orangutan. The teeth have been since studied and found to be out of the range of variation of those found in orangutans, thereby voiding this claim.
Most recently the mandible has been compared favourably with the Chinese ape Lufengpithecus.
The attribution of the Longgupo assemblage to this day remains uncertain.
Five – Lantian
This partial skull and mandible was discovered in 1963 at Lantian County in China’s Shaanxi province.
The mandible was found first at Chenjiawo and the partial skull (nasal bones, right maxilla, part of the temporal bone) and three teeth of another hominin were found at Gongwangling all in Lantian.
The skull was initially dated at 1.5 million years, but new analysis of the site and redating of the strata in 2001, (published in 2015), gives a new date of 1.63 million years for the skull.
Added to the hominin bones, twenty-six lithic artefacts were also found at the same statigraphic loose deposits as the cranium. The stone assemblage consists of cores, hand axes, choppers spheroids and scrapers. Further analysis of the stone tool assemblage points to a close Acheulean tradition. Not known at such an early date in the far east.
Six – Bose
Stone tools have been uncovered at the site of Bose in southern Chinas Guangxi region, dating from over 800,000 years to two million years (biostratigraphic dating of the site).
It should be noted that the handaxes are typical mode 2, Acheulean typology.
Although a lot of information is not available on the Bose site, it is interesting that the site is situated in Guangxi. This is the also the site of the mysterious Longlin Cave, home to the Red Deer people who’s, origin is yet to be established and occupied the region some 11,500 years ago.
Seven – Zhoukoudian
This is a cave system in Fangshan District, 50 kilometers from Beijing. It is divided into a dozen or so localities.
It was first discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson in 1921. But the first discoveries of two teeth were made by Austrian Otto Zdansky in 1921 & 1923, two hominin teeth. These were named by Canadian anatomist, Davidson-Black, as Homo sinanthropus. Later changed to Homo erectus.
The cave system has yielded some 45 individuals as well as stone flakes and chopping tools. The oldest finds are circa 780,000 years old.
Unfortunately, much of the material was lost during the WWII, but casts had been made.
I visited this site in 2011, and made extensive records of its fauna, Stone tools and hominin remains.
Eight – Yunxian
Two skulls found in Hubi Province, 40 km west of Yunxian, are dated to 936,000 years, by geochronological methods.
The skulls were found in 1989 & 1990 by Li Tianyuan of the institute in Wuhan.
The skulls were damaged during the fossilization process, but recently due to 3D virtual imaging, have been accurately reconstructed.
The Yunxian II skull has a cerebral rubicon of 1050cc, which puts it in the Homo erectus range.
Conclusions on Ancient Hominin occupation of China
I have visited China on several occasions since 2003, and been lucky enough to see such archaeological sites as the Great Wall, the Terracotta warriors and Horse Museum, a Neolithic village, and of course some of the hominin sites mentioned in this project.
China is a vast country and it is becoming more important in palaeoanthropology, as finds of early hominins question the held view that Homo erectus left its African homeland 1.9 million years ago.
The early finds at Shangchen at 2.1 million years, certainly show that Homo must have left Africa earlier then 1.9 million years.
This brings to mind, which hominin actually left Africa first. Was it Homo erectus or maybe another Hominin species.
The finds at Dmanisi at 1.8 million years point to much variation in a single assemblage of skulls. Questions over which hominin led to them is highly debated. Was it early Homo ergaster or even Homo habilis.
The finds from Flores, Homo floresiensis, also gives scientists a headache when trying to place its ancestors.
Acknowledgements
I must thank a few people for their support and information given during the length of this project.
Firstly, Professor Robin Dennell of Exeter University, who provided me with sumptuous info on ancient Chinese hominin sites.
Dr Hon Ao, for his advice on the Nihewan basin finds.
The palaeontology curator Zhang, at the Tianjin Natural History Museum.
Most importantly, my wife for assisting me in translating my English into Mandarin.
Also, I’d like to mention Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London. Professor Ian Tattersall from the American Museum of Natural History. Professor Clive Gamble from Southampton University, and Rob Kruszynski all for their good wishes on the project.