Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origin of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China.
J Hum Evol. 2013 May;64(5):337-55. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.10.012. Epub 2013 Mar 5.
The hominin teeth and evidence of hominin activities recovered from 1991 to 2005 at the Panxian Dadong site in South China are dated to the late Middle Pleistocene (MIS 8-6 or ca. 130-300 ka), a period for which very little is known about the morphology of Asian populations. The present study provides the first detailed morphometric description and comparisons of four hominin teeth (I(1), C1, P(3) and P3) from this site. Our study shows that the Panxian Dadong teeth combine archaic and derived features that align them with Middle and Upper Pleistocene fossils from East and West Asia and Europe. These teeth do not display any typical Neanderthal features and they are generally more derived than other contemporaneous populations from Asia and Africa. However, the derived traits are not diagnostic enough to specifically link the Panxian Dadong teeth to Homo sapiens, a common problem when analyzing the Middle Pleistocene dental record from Africa and Asia. These findings are contextualized in the discussion of the evolutionary course of Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins, and they highlight the necessity of incorporating the Asian fossil record in the still open debate about the origin of H. sapiens.
从 1991 年到 2005 年，在华南盘县大洞遗址发现的人类牙齿和人类活动证据可追溯到晚更新世中期（MIS 8-6 或约 130-300 千年前），这个时期亚洲人群的形态特征知之甚少。本研究提供了对该遗址出土的四颗人类牙齿（I(1)、C1、P(3)和 P3）的首次详细形态描述和比较。我们的研究表明，盘县大洞牙齿结合了古老和衍生的特征，使其与东亚、西亚和欧洲的中更新世和上新世化石相一致。这些牙齿没有显示出任何典型的尼安德特人特征，它们通常比亚洲和非洲同时期的其他人群更为衍生。然而，衍生特征还不足以将盘县大洞牙齿与智人明确联系起来，这是在分析非洲和亚洲中更新世牙齿记录时经常出现的问题。这些发现结合了对亚洲中更新世人类进化过程的讨论，强调了将亚洲化石记录纳入关于智人起源的仍在进行的辩论的必要性。
