Fuyan cave

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The Fuyan Cave is a paleoanthropological and archaeological site in the Hunan Province in the south of the People's Republic of China . It is located 231 meters above sea level in the area of ​​Tangbei Municipality in Daoxian County and became internationally known in 2015 after the oldest evidence for the existence of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) in what is now China was discovered in it. The total of almost 50 teeth were dated at least 80,000 years ago.

Description of the cave and the finds

The Fuyan Cave is part of a more than 3000 square meter network of tubular erosions in an extensive karst system with several caves, some on top of each other. Systematic excavations took place from 2011 to 2013 in a total of three different areas. 47 well-preserved teeth of Homo sapiens - some of them as surface finds - and numerous teeth of animals of the Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna , such as Ailuropoda baconi , a fossil relative of the giant panda ; Stegodon orientalis , an extinct species of proboscis ; Crocuta ultima , a fossil relative of the spotted hyenas ; and Megatapirus augustus , a relative of the tapirs . Stone tools were not discovered during these excavations.

Dating

The age of two purified stalagmites from the Fund layers of the teeth could of using uranium-thorium dating are determined: one 80,100 ± 1,200 years, to another 79,500 ± 2800 years before present . According to the researchers, this dating proves the minimum age of the finds. The upper limit for the age was shown to be around 120,000 years, since this is the maximum age of the Ailuropoda Stegodon fauna in southern China.

The oldest finds of Homo sapiens from northern China - for example from the Tianyuan Cave - and from Malaysia ( Niah Caves ) are around 40,000 years old. With reference to these much more recent finds, the researchers argue that the expansion of anatomically modern humans from Africa to the east was via what is now southern China. The fact that the stalagmites used for dating and the teeth found actually come from the same era is not without controversy.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wu Liu et al .: The earliest unequivocally modern humans in southern China. In: Nature . Volume 526, 2015, pp. 696-699, doi: 10.1038 / nature15696
  2. ↑ Teeth from China reveal early human trek out of Africa. On: nature.com from October 14, 2015 (with images of the teeth)
  3. ↑ The Daoxian site. Pictures of the Fuyan Cave on nature.com
  4. ↑ List of faunal composition at Daoxian and other Late Pleistocene localities of southern China. On: nature.com
  5. ↑ Robin Dennell : Homo sapiens in China 80,000 years ago. In: Nature. Volume 526, 2015, pp. 647-648, doi: 10.1038 / nature15640
  6. ↑ Trove of teeth from cave represents oldest modern humans in China. On: sciencemag.org of October 14, 2015

Coordinates: 25 ° 39 '2.7 "  N , 111 ° 28" 49.2 "  E