Tianyuan 1

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Tianyuan 1 ( Chinese  田园 洞 人 , Pinyin Tiányuán Dòng Rén , English Tianyuan man ) is the scientific name of a 40,000-year-old fossil of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ), which was found between 2001 and 2003 in the Tianyuan Cave in Zhoukoudian , a Beijing subdistrict , People's Republic of China , was discovered. The European finds of anatomically modern humans from this epoch are called Cro-Magnon humans .

The discovery

The Tianyuan Cave was discovered in June 2001 by workers from the Tianyuan Tree Farm (also called Tianyuan Forest Farm ), who found numerous fossil bones in it. In addition to the remains of several dozen mammal species - including the bones of red deer , Sika deer and Siberian musk deer - 34 bone fragments of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) were found, which date from 42,000 to 39,000 years ago (cal BP ) were dated. The finds, presumably from a single person, included the right half of the lower jaw, both shoulder blades , humerus , thighbones and shins , an ulna, and several finger and foot bones. The majority of these bones had been recovered by the farm workers before the scientific excavations by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began. However, the researchers concluded from the information provided by the workers that all the bones come from that area of ​​the cave in which a molar tooth and seven foot and finger bones were unearthed during the scientific excavations in 2003 .

The fossil Tianyuan 1 is one of the oldest finds of Homo sapiens in eastern Eurasia , directly age- determined by means of radiocarbon dating ; it is also considered to be the oldest, reliably dated fossil of Homo sapiens from East Asia . According to the information provided by Chinese scientists, his bones show both “modern” and some “old” human characteristics; the gender could not be determined.

In 2008 , the American paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus derived indications from the nature of the foot bones that the person might have already worn shoes .

Analysis of DNA

A research team led by Fu Qiaomei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig succeeded in sequencing the genome of the fossil in 2012 . Recovered was DNA from the left femur (VSN TY 1301) and the right tibia (TY 1305), both the mitochondrial DNA and DNA from the cell nucleus . The data basis from the cell nucleus was the entire non- repetitive DNA of chromosome 21 (around 30 Mbp ) as well as more than 3000 polymorphisms from other chromosomes . Part of the work was carried out in a laboratory operated by the Max Planck Society together with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The findings of the DNA sequencing were interpreted to the effect that the fossil is beyond doubt the remains of an anatomically modern human. The individual was also a member of a population whose descendants include many modern Asians and Native Americans . Genetic findings on the spread of humans were also confirmed , from which it was deduced that the lineage of the prehistoric Asian population had already separated from that of the ancestors of Europeans living today. However, there was no evidence in the genome of the “old” features of the bones perceived by the Chinese researchers: the genome does not contain a greater proportion of Neanderthals or Denisova DNA than people living in the region today.

Analysis of the food

With the help of isotope studies , a Chinese research team succeeded in 2009 in gaining clues about the eating habits during the lifetime of the person whose remains are known as the Tianyuan 1 fossil. Thus, nitrogen (N), two stable isotopes ( 15 N and 14 N), their frequency in the protein allows for example to draw conclusions about the frequency of meat consumption. The comparison of nitrogen and sulfur isotopes ( 34 S and 32 S) also allows conclusions to be drawn about the composition of the food, as well as the consideration of carbon isotopes. The researchers compared the isotope composition of the collagen from the right humerus of the Tianyuan 1 fossil with that of pure herbivore fossils from the same cave and derived from these analyzes that animal protein was a major component of the diet of Tianyuan 1. It was also concluded from the high nitrogen isotope values ​​that this person regularly ate freshwater fish .

The researchers described their findings as the earliest direct evidence to date that Homo sapiens obtained food from freshwater as early as that epoch - around 40,000 years ago, at the beginning of the spread of humans in East Asia . The researchers emphasize less this fact than such, but rather the fact that fish was apparently consumed year-round and so abundantly that its consumption was reflected in the isotope composition of the collagen in the bones.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Haowen Tong et al .: A preliminary report on the newly found Tianyuan Cave, a Late Pleistocene human fossil site near Zhoukoudian. In: Chinese Science Bulletin. Volume 49, No. 8, 2004, pp. 853-857, doi: 10.1007 / BF02889760
  2. ↑ Hong Shang et al .: An early modern human from Tianyuan Cave, Zhoukoudian, China. In: PNAS . Volume 104, No. 16, 2007, pp. 6573-6578, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.0702169104
  3. ↑ literally: "the first east Asia well dated modern human associated skeleton> 30 ka 14 C BP". Hong Shang et al .: An early modern human from Tianyuan Cave ... , p. 6577
  4. ↑ Erik Trinkaus , Hong Shang: Anatomical evidence for the antiquity of human footwear: Tianyuan and Sunghir. In: Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 35, No. 7, 2008, pp. 1928-1933, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2007.12.002
  5. ↑ Qiaomei Fu et al .: DNA analysis of an early modern human from Tianyuan Cave, China. In: PNAS. Online pre-publication of January 22, 2013, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1221359110
  6. ↑ A relative from Tianyuan Cave. On: idw-online.de from January 22, 2013
  7. ↑ Yaowu Hu et al .: Stable isotope dietary analysis of the Tianyuan 1 early modern human. In: PNAS. Volume 106, No. 27, 2009, pp. 10971-10974, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.0904826106