Wu Xinzhi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wu Xinzhi (吴新智, born June 2, 1928 in Hefei ; † December 4, 2021 ) was a Chinese paleoanthropologist and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences . He became internationally known for a special interpretation of human tribal history .

Life

Wu studied medicine at Shanghai Medical College (since 2000: Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University ), with a focus on human anatomy . He graduated in 1953 and then devoted himself to paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 1961 Wu worked at the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , first as a research assistant, later as a professor and deputy director. Wu was also editor-in-chief of Acta Anthropologica Sinica for many years and Vice President of the Chinese Society for Anatomical Sciences, 中国 解剖学 会.

Due to his work for the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wu Xinzhi was involved in numerous excavations, including in Zhoukoudian , the original site of the Peking man ; in Shanxi Province , the place where the so-called Dingcun people were found ; also at the end of the 1970s on the scientific description of the Dali man . But he also researched the anatomy of gibbons.

Deviating from the majority opinion of the international paleoanthropologist community, which based on fossil finds and genetic analyzes (" Mitochondrial Eve ") assumed that modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) would emerge before 100,000 to 200,000 in Africa and that humans would only spread afterwards Wu the hypothesis that the Asian type of Homo sapiens developed in Asia from Homo erectus, which immigrated from Africa to Asia thousands of years ago, due to "Continuity with Hybridization". He published this hypothesis of the multiregional origin of modern man in 1984 together with Milford H. Wolpoff . In 1998, he restricted this hypothesis by a second hypothesis one, according to the Asian variant of Homo sapiens arose in China and not as by fossil finds occupied and genetic studies out-of-Africa theory describes by immigration of Homo sapiens from Africa.

Due to its high-ranking position in Chinese paleoanthropology, this hypothesis has, among other things, the consequence that fossils from the transition from the Middle Pleistocene to the New Pleistocene are already referred to as Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens erectus in numerous Chinese publications , which according to the majority opinion of the international paleoanthropologist community as Homo erectus .

Fonts (selection)

  • with Frank E. Poirier: Human evolution in China. A metric description of the fossils and a review of the sites. Oxford University Press, New York 1995, ISBN 0-19-507432-7
  • with Wei-wen Huang and Guoqin Qi: Zhongguo Gu Ren Lei Yi Zhi. (Paleolithic Sites in China.) Shanghai ke ji jiao yu chu ban she, Shanghai 1999, ISBN 978-7-5428-1975-8 . (Chinese)
  • On the origin of modern humans in China. In: Quaternary International , Volume 117, 2004, pp. 131-140, doi : 10.1016 / S1040-6182 (03) 00123-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 胡 珉 琦 来源:吴新智 院士 ： 用 一生 逼近 一个 真相. In: sciencenet.cn. December 9, 2021, accessed December 11, 2021 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ Wu Xinzhi: A well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China. In: Scientia Sinica , Vol. 24, No. 4, 1981, pp. 530-541, PMID 6789450 .
  3. ↑ Wu Xinzhi, Ye Zhizhang, Kin Yipu: Anatomy of the Gibbons. Science Press, Beijing 1978 (Chinese)
  4. ↑ Milford H. Wolpoff, Wu Xinzhi, Alan G. Thorne: Modern Homo sapiens origins: a general theory of hominid evolution involving the fossil evidence from East Asia. In: FH Smith, F. Spencer (Eds.): The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence. Alan R. Liss, New York 1984, pp. 411-483.
  5. ↑ Wu Xinzhi: Origin of modern humans of China viewed from cranio-dental characteristics of late Homo sapiens. In: Acta Anthropologica Sinica , Volume 17, 1998, pp. 276-282
personal data
SURNAME Wu, Xinzhi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese paleoanthropologist
BIRTH DATE June 2, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Hefei
DATE OF DEATH December 4, 2021