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

Zhaoyu Zhu (), Robin Dennell (), Weiwen Huang, Yi Wu, Shifan Qiu, Shixia Yang, Zhiguo Rao, Yamei Hou, Jiubing Xie, Jiangwei Han and Tingping Ouyang
Additional contact information
Zhaoyu Zhu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Robin Dennell: University of Exeter
Weiwen Huang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yi Wu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shifan Qiu: Gannan Normal University
Shixia Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhiguo Rao: Hunan Normal University
Yamei Hou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jiubing Xie: Environmental Supervision Detachment of Nanning
Jiangwei Han: Henan Institute of Geological Survey
Tingping Ouyang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature, 2018, vol. 559, issue 7715, 608-612

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4

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