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Hominin evolution and diversity: a comparison of earlier-Middle and later-Middle Pleistocene hominin fossil variation in China.
- Source :
-
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 3/28/2022, Vol. 377 Issue 1847, p1-13. 13p. - Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Historical views of Asia as an evolutionary 'backwater' are associated with the idea that Homo erectus experienced long periods of stasis and ultimately went extinct. However, recent discoveries of well-dated Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils in China have considerably challenged these ideas and provide sufficient data to propose a testable model that explains the patterning of variation in Middle Pleistocene China, and why it changed over time. A series of hominin fossil studies comparing earlier-Middle and later-Middle Pleistocene groups confirm that the expressions of certain traits shift around 300 ka. Fossils from the later Middle Pleistocene are more variable with a mix of archaic traits as well as ones that are common in Western Eurasian early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. The period around 300 ka appears to have been a critical turning point for later-Middle Pleistocene morphological changes in China. It coincides with a phase of climatic instability in the Northern Hemisphere between Marine Isotope Stages 12 and 10 that would have led to changes in gene flow patterning, and regional population survival/extinction. This localized and testable model can be used for future explorations of hominin evolution in later Pleistocene eastern Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *PLEISTOCENE Epoch
*FOSSIL hominids
*HOMO erectus
*FOSSILS
*GENE flow
*NEANDERTHALS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09628436
- Volume :
- 377
- Issue :
- 1847
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 155305702
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0040