The first archaic Homo from Taiwan

Chun Hsiang Chang; Yousuke Kaifu; Masanaru Takai; Reiko T. Kono; Rainer Grün; Shuji Matsu'Ura; Les Kinsley; Liang Kong Lin

doi:10.1038/ncomms7037

The first archaic Homo from Taiwan

Chun Hsiang Chang^*, Yousuke Kaifu, Masanaru Takai, Reiko T. Kono, Rainer Grün, Shuji Matsu'Ura, Les Kinsley, Liang Kong Lin

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

66 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent studies of an increasing number of hominin fossils highlight regional and chronological diversities of archaic Homo in the Pleistocene of eastern Asia. However, such a realization is still based on limited geographical occurrences mainly from Indonesia, China and Russian Altai. Here we describe a newly discovered archaic Homo mandible from Taiwan (Penghu 1), which further increases the diversity of Pleistocene Asian hominins. Penghu 1 revealed an unexpectedly late survival (younger than 450 but most likely 190-10 thousand years ago) of robust, apparently primitive dentognathic morphology in the periphery of the continent, which is unknown among the penecontemporaneous fossil records from other regions of Asia except for the mid-Middle Pleistocene Homo from Hexian, Eastern China. Such patterns of geographic trait distribution cannot be simply explained by clinal geographic variation of Homo erectus between northern China and Java, and suggests survival of multiple evolutionary lineages among archaic hominins before the arrival of modern humans in the region.

Original language	English
Article number	6037
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7037
Publication status	Published - Feb 2015

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title = "The first archaic Homo from Taiwan",

abstract = "Recent studies of an increasing number of hominin fossils highlight regional and chronological diversities of archaic Homo in the Pleistocene of eastern Asia. However, such a realization is still based on limited geographical occurrences mainly from Indonesia, China and Russian Altai. Here we describe a newly discovered archaic Homo mandible from Taiwan (Penghu 1), which further increases the diversity of Pleistocene Asian hominins. Penghu 1 revealed an unexpectedly late survival (younger than 450 but most likely 190-10 thousand years ago) of robust, apparently primitive dentognathic morphology in the periphery of the continent, which is unknown among the penecontemporaneous fossil records from other regions of Asia except for the mid-Middle Pleistocene Homo from Hexian, Eastern China. Such patterns of geographic trait distribution cannot be simply explained by clinal geographic variation of Homo erectus between northern China and Java, and suggests survival of multiple evolutionary lineages among archaic hominins before the arrival of modern humans in the region.",

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AU - Chang, Chun Hsiang

AU - Kaifu, Yousuke

AU - Takai, Masanaru

AU - Kono, Reiko T.

AU - Grün, Rainer

AU - Matsu'Ura, Shuji

AU - Kinsley, Les

AU - Lin, Liang Kong

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The first archaic Homo from Taiwan

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