The first archaic Homo from Taiwan

Chun-Hsiang Chang (), Yousuke Kaifu (), Masanaru Takai, Reiko T. Kono, Rainer Grün, Shuji Matsu’ura, Les Kinsley and Liang-Kong Lin
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Chun-Hsiang Chang: National Museum of Natural Science
Yousuke Kaifu: National Museum of Nature and Science
Masanaru Takai: Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
Reiko T. Kono: National Museum of Nature and Science
Rainer Grün: Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University
Shuji Matsu’ura: Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Ochanomizu University
Les Kinsley: Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University
Liang-Kong Lin: Tunghai University

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7037

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