Early evidence of the genus Homo in East Asia

The early Pleistocene colonization of temperate Eurasia by Homo erectus was not only a significant biogeographic event but also a major evolutionary threshold. Dmanisi's rich collection of hominin fossils, revealing a population that was small-brained with both primitive and derived skeletal traits, has been dated to the earliest Upper Matuyama chron (ca. 1.77 Ma). Here we present archaeological and geologic evidence that push back Dmanisi's first occupations to shortly after 1.85 Ma and document repeated use of the site over the last half of the Olduvai subchron, 1.85-1.78 Ma. These discoveries show that the southern Caucasus was occupied repeatedly before Dmanisi's hominin fossil assemblage accumulated, strengthening the probability that this was part of a core area for the colonization of Eurasia. The secure age for Dmanisi's first occupations reveals that Eurasia was probably occupied before Homo erectus appears in the East African fossil record.Lower Paleolithic | paleoanthropology I n recent years, paleoanthropologists have intensified the search for evidence for one of the most significant events in human evolution: the dispersal of early Homo from Africa to Eurasia. That Homo erectus was the first hominin to leave Africa and colonize Eurasia has been accepted by paleoanthropologists for over a century. However, models that linked the first African exodus to increases in stature, encephalization, and technological advances (1-3) have been challenged by discoveries at Dmanisi (4). Dmanisi is located in the southern Georgian Caucasus (41°20'10"N and 44°20'38"E), 55 km southwest of Tbilisi (Fig. 1). The prehistoric excavations at Dmanisi have been concentrated in the central part of a promontory that stands above the confluence of the Masavera and Pinasauri rivers. Lower Pleistocene deposits are preserved below the Medieval ruins and above the 1.85-Ma Masavera Basalt (Fig. 1). Those excavations yielded numerous exceptionally preserved hominin fossils. Stratigraphic studies revealed that that all of those hominin fossils are from sediments of stratum B, dated to ca. 1.77 Ma, based on 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates, paleomagnetism, and paleontologic constraints (4, 5). In the main excavations, no artifacts or fossils have been found in the older stratum A deposits, which conformably overlie the Masavera Basalt. Dmanisi's rich collection of hominin fossils reveals a population with short stature and cranial capacities of only 600-775 cc (4-9). Artifact assemblages are all indicative of a Mode I technology, with no bifacial tools (10). Recently completed testing in the M5 sector of Dmanisi has yielded in situ artifacts and faunal remains from the older stratum A deposits, pushing back Dmanisi's occupational history into the upper Olduvai subchron. These findings indicate that African and Eurasian theaters for the evolution of early humans had been established even earlier than thought previously, with implications for the age of dispersals not only within Eurasia but also between Eurasia and Africa. This article describes t...

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“…Human presence in China is dated to ca. 1.7 Ma (23,24), and Homo erectus fossils in Java are dated to ca. 1.6 Ma (25).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma

Ferring

Oms

Agustı́

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

278

122

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“…African sites are well represented by the ETE (Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems) records and much of the European and Central Asian records are covered by the PACED dataset. However, far fewer Eastern Asian sites are included, although fortunately several recent reviews of the Asian faunas have been published (Chauhan, 2008;Deng et al, 2008;Nanda, 2002Nanda, , 2008Tong, 2006Tong, , 2007Zhu et al, 2008) and these have been incorporated where appropriate. The breakdown of localities per continent is as follows: Asia = 63, Africa = 526, Europe = 306, and the Levant = 9.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hominins without fellow travellers? First appearances and inferred dispersals of Afro-Eurasian large-mammals in the Plio-Pleistocene

O’Regan

Turner

Bishop

et al. 2011

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Discoveries of fossil Homo outside Africa predating 1.0 Ma have generated much discussion about hominin dispersal routes. However, tool-using bipeds were only one element of the inter-continental mammalian dispersals that occurred during the climatic changes of the Pliocene and Pleistocene. This paper will place hominin movements in the context of those of the wider mammalian fauna, which includes carnivores, bovids and non-human primates. The distribution of these different taxa suggests that species moved individually when the environmental conditions were right for them, rather than in multi-species waves of dispersal, and allows evaluation of the contextual evidence for the newly emerging 'Out of Asia' paradigm as well as the established 'Out of Africa' model.

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“…0.8 Ma, the second stage/age of the recently revised (3) Pleistocene] (e.g., [4][5][6]. Among the H. erectus sites outside Africa, fossil localities in Java provide a long history of collection and study in multiple locations compared with others in western Asia (7,8) and China (9)(10)(11). In the 1891-1892 excavation at Trinil, East Java, E. Dubois discovered a hominid skull cap and femur, which triggered numerous follow-up collections in Java.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

High-resolution record of the Matuyama–Brunhes transition constrains the age of Javanese Homo erectus in the Sangiran dome, Indonesia

Hyodo

Matsu’ura

Kamishima

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A detailed paleomagnetic study conducted in the Sangiran area, Java, has provided a reliable age constraint on hominid fossilbearing formations. A reverse-to-normal polarity transition marks a 7-m thick section across the Upper Tuff in the Bapang Formation. The transition has three short reversal episodes and is overlain by a thick normal polarity magnetozone that was fission-track dated to the Brunhes chron. This pattern closely resembles another highresolution Matuyama-Brunhes (MB) transition record in an Osaka Bay marine core. In the Sangiran sediments, four successive transitional polarity fields lie just below the presumed main MB boundary. Their virtual geomagnetic poles cluster in the western South Pacific, partly overlapping the transitional virtual geomagnetic poles from Hawaiian and Canary Islands' lavas, which have a mean 40 Ar/ 39 Ar age of 776 ± 2 ka. Thus, the polarity transition is unambiguously the MB boundary. A revised correlation of tuff layers in the Bapang Formation reveals that the hominid last occurrence and the tektite level in the Sangiran area are nearly coincident, just below the Upper Middle Tuff, which underlies the MB transition. The stratigraphic relationship of the tektite level to the MB transition in the Sangiran area is consistent with deep-sea core data that show that the meteorite impact preceded the MB reversal by about 12 ka. The MB boundary currently defines the uppermost horizon yielding Homo erectus fossils in the Sangiran area.paleomagnetism | marine isotope stage 19 | magnetostratigraphy | geochronology

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Early evidence of the genus Homo in East Asia

Cited by 138 publications

References 25 publications

Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma

Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85–1.78 Ma

Hominins without fellow travellers? First appearances and inferred dispersals of Afro-Eurasian large-mammals in the Plio-Pleistocene

High-resolution record of the Matuyama–Brunhes transition constrains the age of Javanese Homo erectus in the Sangiran dome, Indonesia

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