Huanglong Cave: A Newly Found Late Pleistocene Human Fossil Site in Hubei Province,

Debates on modern human origins For 20 years the debate on modern human origins has received a significant amount of attention. Primarily supported by earlier dates of anatomical ly modern human fossils and genetic studies, the “Out of Africa ” hypothesis holds the well-known belief that the ancestor of all modern humans, including modern Chinese, came from Africa. The opposite hypothesis, “Mutiregional evolution ” theory proposes that continuous evolution occurred on a regional scale, for which human paleontology offers strong support. In this debate, the discovery of human fossils, artifacts, and related materials in the same context dated around 100 ka is important. Anatomically modern human fossils dated 100 ka or earlier found in Africa have been used as the key evidence to support the “Out of Africa ” hypothesis. So far, human fossils from East Asia that dated around 100 ka are very sparse. The majority of the late Pleistocene human fossils found in China are younger than 50 ka. Even though some fossils are claimed to be older than this age, either because of stratigraphic uncertainties or lack of reliable dating, all the evidence supporting such claims is weak. The newly found human fossils, artifacts and remains of fire use from Huanglong Cave in Hubei Province, China might shed some new light on this big puzzle. Dated as 44 to 100 ka in age, the new materials offer fresh clues about behavior of this population and more importantly, the origin of modern Chinese