title: Human remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition of southwest China suggest a complex evolutionary history for East Asians.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Later Pleistocene human evolution in East Asia remains poorly understood owing to a scarcity of well described, reliably classified and accurately dated fossils. Southwest China has been identified from genetic research as a hotspot of human diversity, containing ancient mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages, and has yielded a number of human remains thought to derive from Pleistocene deposits. We have prepared, reconstructed, described and dated a new partial skull from a consolidated sediment block collected in 1979 from the site of Longlin Cave (Guangxi Province). We also undertook new excavations at Maludong (Yunnan Province) to clarify the stratigraphy and dating of a large sample of mostly undescribed human remains from the site.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We undertook a detailed comparison of cranial, including a virtual endocast for the Maludong calotte, mandibular and dental remains from these two localities. Both samples probably derive from the same population, exhibiting an unusual mixture of modern human traits, characters probably plesiomorphic for later Homo, and some unusual features. We dated charcoal with AMS radiocarbon dating and speleothem with the Uranium-series technique and the results show both samples to be from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition: ∼14.3-11.5 ka.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our analysis suggests two plausible explanations for the morphology sampled at Longlin Cave and Maludong. First, it may represent a late-surviving archaic population, perhaps paralleling the situation seen in North Africa as indicated by remains from Dar-es-Soltane and Temara, and maybe also in southern China at Zhirendong. Alternatively, East Asia may have been colonised during multiple waves during the Pleistocene, with the Longlin-Maludong morphology possibly reflecting deep population substructure in Africa prior to modern humans dispersing into Eurasia.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. d.curnoe@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Darren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Curnoe
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xueping
authors.forename: Andy I R
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Herries
authors.forename: Bai
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kanning
authors.forename: Paul S C
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Taçon
authors.forename: Bao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhende
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fink
authors.forename: Zhu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yunsheng
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hellstrom
authors.forename: Luo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yun
authors.forename: Gerasimos
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cassis
authors.forename: Su
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bing
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wroe
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: William C H
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Parr
authors.forename: Huang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shengmin
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rogers
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D044466:Asian People; D005075:Biological Evolution; D044383:Black People; D049628:Body Size / Q000502:physiology; D002681:China; D003442:Crowns; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils; D005843:Geography; D004930:Inuit; D008334:Mandible / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D013997:Time Factors; D014501:Uranium; D044465:White People
chemical_list: D014501:Uranium