Xing Song, Martinón-Torres María, Bermúdez de Castro Jose María, Wu Xiujie, Liu Wu
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2015 Feb;156(2):224-40. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22641. Epub 2014 Oct 20.
It is generally accepted that from the late Middle to the early Late Pleistocene (∼340-90 ka BP), Neanderthals were occupying Europe and Western Asia, whereas anatomically modern humans were present in the African continent. In contrast, the paucity of hominin fossil evidence from East Asia from this period impedes a complete evolutionary picture of the genus Homo, as well as assessment of the possible contribution of or interaction with Asian hominins in the evolution of Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Here we present a comparative study of a hominin dental sample recovered from the Xujiayao site, in Northern China, attributed to the early Late Pleistocene (MIS 5 to 4). Our dental study reveals a mosaic of primitive and derived dental features for the Xujiayao hominins that can be summarized as follows: i) they are different from archaic and recent modern humans, ii) they present some features that are common but not exclusive to the Neanderthal lineage, and iii) they retain some primitive conformations classically found in East Asian Early and Middle Pleistocene hominins despite their young geological age. Thus, our study evinces the existence in China of a population of unclear taxonomic status with regard to other contemporary populations such as H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. The morphological and metric studies of the Xujiayao teeth expand the variability known for early Late Pleistocene hominin fossils and suggest the possibility that a primitive hominin lineage may have survived late into the Late Pleistocene in China.
普遍认为，从中更新世晚期到晚更新世早期（约34万至9万年BP），尼安德特人占据着欧洲和西亚，而解剖学上的现代人类则出现在非洲大陆。相比之下，这一时期东亚地区人类化石证据的匮乏，阻碍了对人属完整进化图景的了解，也妨碍了评估亚洲古人类在智人和尼安德特人进化过程中可能做出的贡献或相互作用。在此，我们对在中国北方许家窑遗址发现的一批可追溯到晚更新世早期（海洋同位素阶段5至4）的古人类牙齿样本进行了比较研究。我们的牙齿研究揭示了许家窑古人类牙齿特征呈现出原始与衍生特征的镶嵌组合，可总结如下：i）它们不同于古老型和现代型人类；ii）它们呈现出一些尼安德特人谱系中常见但并非独有的特征；iii）尽管地质年代较新，但它们仍保留了一些东亚早更新世和中更新世古人类中常见的原始形态。因此，我们的研究表明，在中国存在一个分类地位不明确的群体，与智人和尼安德特人等其他同期群体不同。对许家窑牙齿的形态学和测量学研究扩展了已知的晚更新世早期古人类化石的变异性，并表明在中国可能存在一个原始古人类谱系一直存活到晚更新世晚期。
