This photo provided by the journal Nature shows human upper teeth found in the Fuyan Cave of Hunan province in southern China.
Advertisement
Our species, Homo sapiens, is thought to have appeared in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
“In this case, we are saying the H. sapiens is out of Africa much earlier”, she told the peer-reviewed journal Nature, which published the study.
Excavations from 2011 to 2013 yielded a trove of 47 human teeth, as well as bones from many other extinct and living animals, such as pandas, hyenas and pigs.
Past research places the first modern humans in Africa around 200,000 years ago, but researchers are still finding out how they evolved, migrated, and lived early on.
The first is the intimidating presence of Neanderthal man. While this species of early human eventually died out, they were spread across the European continent up until at least a few 50,000 years ago.
They suggested the slower migration of H. sapiens into Europe may have been the result of competition with Neanderthals, which ultimately led to extinction of Neanderthals and the dominance of modern humans.
The finding may mean that people arrived in multiple waves, said Maria Martinon-Torres of University College London, a study author.
Homo sapiens reached present-day China 80,000-120,000 years ago, according to the study, which could redraw the migration map for modern humans.
“The classic idea is that H. sapiens…” “I think the main reasons here were that the Neanderthals were a long-established resident population in northern Eurasia; and sub-freezing winters were a major deterrent to an African-derived H. sapiens until long after they had crossed southern Asia”.
Lead researcher, Dr Wu Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said the team was planning to undertake a genetic analysis on the teeth in the hope that this would answer questions about possible genetic links between these ancient H. sapiens and us.
Another impediment might have been the cold.
Advertisement
“What are the origins of these populations, and what was their fate?” When and how the modern human lineage dispersed from Africa has always been controversial.
