Tongzi man
Paleolithic fossils are referred to as Tongzi man ( 桐梓 人 , Tóngzǐrén , English Tongzi Man ) , which were discovered in 1972 and 1983 in a limestone cave in Tongzi County in the Chinese province of Guizhou and dated to the geological period of the Middle Pleistocene . These were four teeth that were similar in size and shape to those of the northern Chinese Peking man ( Homo erectus ).
However, Chinese experts initially classified the fossils as archaic Homo sapiens on the assumption that anatomically modern humans in Asia developed from Homo erectus (→ multi-regional origin of modern humans ). However, this assumption contradicted the now known genetic analyzes of the much later spread of Homo sapiens , which is why the teeth would most likely have been placed next to Homo erectus . In 2019, a scientific review of the fossils was published, according to which the initial age assignment of the four teeth was correct; it is now shown as 240,000 to 172,000 years ago. At the same time, differences in the structure of the teeth were highlighted, which distinguish the Tongzi finds from the “classical” (early) Homo erectus , which gave rise to the hypothesis that around 200,000 years ago in southern China a - previously only confirmed on the basis of the four teeth - “non ectus ”population could have lived. The co-author of the publication, María Martinón-Torres, believes it is possible that this population could belong to the Denisova people .
See also
Web links
- Tongziren (Tongzi man) - Chinese
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cihai ("Sea of Words"), Shanghai cishu chubanshe, Shanghai 2002, ISBN 7-5326-0839-5 , p. 1688.
- ↑ Song Xing, María Martinón-Torres and José María Bermúdez de Castro : Late Middle Pleistocene hominin teeth from Tongzi, southern China. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 130, 2019, pp. 96-108, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2019.03.001
- ↑ Tongzi hominids are potentially a new human ancestor in Asia. On: cenieh.es from April 2, 2019