A model of the face of Homo erectus
The oldest evidence of ancient human relatives in East Asia has been discovered. New dating for Homo erectus skulls found in central China provides new insights into how and when these human relatives arrived in that region.
A new study, this Wednesday in ScienceAdvancesrevealed that three Homo erectus skulls previously unearthed in China are nearly 1.8 million years old, about 600,000 years older than previously thought.
This revelation made the Yunxian skulls of Hubei province the oldest evidence of our earliest human relatives, known as hominins, in East Asia.
The study co-author Christopher Baeprofessor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, admitted that he felt “absolute surprise” when he saw the results of the analysis.
This older age could force experts to rethink the date when H. erectus It first emerged, which is believed to have occurred about 2 million years ago in Africa.
“What this means is that we need to consider retreat the origin of Homo erectus to ago about 2.6 million years“, said Bae.
O H. erectus has long been considered the first human relative to leave Africa, with the 1.78 million to 1.85 million year old fossils found at the Dmanisi site in Georgia being the oldest evidence of humans in Asia. However, stone tools discovered at two sites in China from 2.1 million and 2.43 million years ago have complicated this picture, as they predate experts’ theory about when H. erectus originated.
Chris Stringera paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science that “it would in fact be remarkable” if the Yunxian skulls were nearly 1.8 million years old, acknowledging that “placing Yunxian at such a great age would place it completely out of sync with the rest of the fossil record”.
According to previous work by Stringer and his colleagues, the Yunxian fossils may belong to a group that gave rise to the Denisovanswhich their model suggests arose about 1.2 million years ago.
If correct, the new date for the Yunxian fossils could also force scientists to reconsider the origin of our own species’ ancestora wise man
