The Missing Late Pleistocene Ostrich Femur from Zhoukoudian (China): New Information Provided by a Rediscovered Old Cast

A Hominin Femur with Archaic Affinities from the Late Pleistocene of Southwest China

The number of Late Pleistocene hominin species and the timing of their extinction are issues receiving renewed attention following genomic evidence for interbreeding between the ancestors of some living humans and archaic taxa. Yet, major gaps in the fossil record and uncertainties surrounding the age of key fossils have meant that these questions remain poorly understood. Here we describe and ...

A new Homo erectus (Zhoukoudian V) brain endocast from China.

A new Homo erectus endocast, Zhoukoudian (ZKD) V, is assessed by comparing it with ZKD II, ZKD III, ZKD X, ZKD XI, ZKD XII, Hexian, Trinil II, Sambungmacan (Sm) 3, Sangiran 2, Sangiran 17, KNM-ER 3733, KNM-WT 15 000, Kabwe, Liujiang and 31 modern Chinese. The endocast of ZKD V has an estimated endocranial volume of 1140 ml. As the geological age of ZKD V is younger than the other ZKD H. erectus...

Modern human teeth from Late Pleistocene Luna Cave (Guangxi, China)

We present two previously unreported hominin permanent teeth [one right upper second molar (M2), one left lower second molar (m2)] from Lunadong (“dong” 1⁄4 “cave”), Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The teeth are important because: 1) they were found in situ; 2) at least one (M2) can be confidently assigned to modern Homo sapiens, while the other (m2) is likely modern H. sapiens; and 3)...

Buttonhole: an old technique rediscovered.

An early modern human from Tianyuan Cave, Zhoukoudian, China.

Thirty-four elements of an early modern human (EMH) were found in Tianyuan Cave, Zhoukoudian, China in 2003. Dated to 42,000-39,000 calendrical years before present by using direct accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon, the Tianyuan 1 skeleton is among the oldest directly dated EMHs in eastern Eurasia. Morphological comparison shows Tianyuan 1 to have a series of derived modern human charac...