Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Zhaoyu Zhu^{1

2}, Robin Dennell³, Weiwen Huang^{4

5}, Yi Wu⁶, Shifan Qiu⁷, Shixia Yang^{5

8}, Zhiguo Rao⁹, Yamei Hou^{4

5}, Jiubing Xie¹⁰, Jiangwei Han¹¹, Tingping Ouyang^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China. zhuzy@gig.ac.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China. zhuzy@gig.ac.cn.
³ Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. r.w.dennell@exeter.ac.uk.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
⁷ School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁹ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
¹⁰ Environmental Supervision Detachment of Nanning, Nanning, China.
¹¹ Henan Institute of Geological Survey, Zhengzhou, China.
¹² Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
¹³ School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.

PMID: 29995848
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4

Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Zhaoyu Zhu et al. Nature. 2018 Jul.

. 2018 Jul;559(7715):608-612.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4. Epub 2018 Jul 11.

Authors

Zhaoyu Zhu^{1

2}, Robin Dennell³, Weiwen Huang^{4

5}, Yi Wu⁶, Shifan Qiu⁷, Shixia Yang^{5

8}, Zhiguo Rao⁹, Yamei Hou^{4

5}, Jiubing Xie¹⁰, Jiangwei Han¹¹, Tingping Ouyang^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China. zhuzy@gig.ac.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China. zhuzy@gig.ac.cn.
³ Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. r.w.dennell@exeter.ac.uk.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
⁷ School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁹ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China.
¹⁰ Environmental Supervision Detachment of Nanning, Nanning, China.
¹¹ Henan Institute of Geological Survey, Zhengzhou, China.
¹² Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
¹³ School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.

PMID: 29995848
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4

Abstract

Considerable attention has been paid to dating the earliest appearance of hominins outside Africa. The earliest skeletal and artefactual evidence for the genus Homo in Asia currently comes from Dmanisi, Georgia, and is dated to approximately 1.77-1.85 million years ago (Ma)¹. Two incisors that may belong to Homo erectus come from Yuanmou, south China, and are dated to 1.7 Ma²; the next-oldest evidence is an H. erectus cranium from Lantian (Gongwangling)-which has recently been dated to 1.63 Ma³-and the earliest hominin fossils from the Sangiran dome in Java, which are dated to about 1.5-1.6 Ma⁴. Artefacts from Majuangou III⁵ and Shangshazui⁶ in the Nihewan basin, north China, have also been dated to 1.6-1.7 Ma. Here we report an Early Pleistocene and largely continuous artefact sequence from Shangchen, which is a newly discovered Palaeolithic locality of the southern Chinese Loess Plateau, near Gongwangling in Lantian county. The site contains 17 artefact layers that extend from palaeosol S15-dated to approximately 1.26 Ma-to loess L28, which we date to about 2.12 Ma. This discovery implies that hominins left Africa earlier than indicated by the evidence from Dmanisi.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

An early hominin arrival in Asia.
Kappelman J. Kappelman J. Nature. 2018 Jul;559(7715):480-481. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-05293-9. Nature. 2018. PMID: 30030512 No abstract available.

Cited by

Earliest evidence of human occupations and technological complexity above the 45th North parallel in Western Europe. The site of Lunery-Rosieres la-Terre-des-Sablons (France, 1.1 Ma).
Despriée J, Moncel MH, Courcimault G, Voinchet P, Jouanneau JC, Bahain JJ. Despriée J, et al. Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 23;14(1):16894. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66980-4. Sci Rep. 2024. PMID: 39043764 Free PMC article.
Orbital- and millennial-scale Asian winter monsoon variability across the Pliocene-Pleistocene glacial intensification.
Ao H, Liebrand D, Dekkers MJ, Roberts AP, Jonell TN, Jin Z, Song Y, Liu Q, Sun Q, Li X, Huang C, Qiang X, Zhang P. Ao H, et al. Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 19;15(1):3364. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47274-9. Nat Commun. 2024. PMID: 38641605 Free PMC article.
Hominin population bottleneck coincided with migration from Africa during the Early Pleistocene ice age transition.
Muttoni G, Kent DV. Muttoni G, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Mar 26;121(13):e2318903121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2318903121. Epub 2024 Mar 11. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024. PMID: 38466876
Earliest Prepared core technology in Eurasia from Nihewan (China): Implications for early human abilities and dispersals in East Asia.
Ma DD, Pei SW, Xie F, Ye Z, Wang FG, Xu JY, Deng CL, de la Torre I. Ma DD, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Mar 12;121(11):e2313123121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2313123121. Epub 2024 Mar 4. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024. PMID: 38437546
Javanese Homo erectus on the move in SE Asia circa 1.8 Ma.
Husson L, Salles T, Lebatard AE, Zerathe S, Braucher R, Noerwidi S, Aribowo S, Mallard C, Carcaillet J, Natawidjaja DH, Bourlès D; ASTER team. Husson L, et al. Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 8;12(1):19012. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-23206-9. Sci Rep. 2022. PMID: 36347897 Free PMC article.

See all "Cited by" articles

References

1. Ferring, R. et al. Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 10432–10436 (2011). - DOI - PubMed
1. Zhu, R. X. et al. Early evidence of the genus Homo in East Asia. J. Hum. Evol. 55, 1075–1085 (2008). - DOI - PubMed - PMC
1. Zhu, Z. Y. et al. New dating of the Homo erectus cranium from Lantian (Gongwangling), China. J. Hum. Evol. 78, 144–157 (2015). - DOI - PubMed
1. Zaim, Y. et al. New 1.5 million-year-old Homo erectus maxilla from Sangiran (Central Java, Indonesia). J. Hum. Evol. 61, 363–376 (2011). - DOI - PubMed
1. Zhu, R. X. et al. New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia. Nature 431, 559–562 (2004). - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

Actions
Actions

MeSH terms

Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources
- Nature Publishing Group
Other Literature Sources
- scite Smart Citations

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Affiliations

Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Comment in

Similar articles

Cited by

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources