The discovery of an early human fossil in southern China may challenge the commonly held idea that modern humans originated out of Africa.
Jin Changzhu and colleagues of the in Beijing, announced to Chinese media last week that they have uncovered a 110,000-year-old putative Homo sapiens jawbone from a cave in southern China鈥檚 Guangxi province.
The mandible has a protruding chin like that of Homo sapiens, but the thickness of the jaw is indicative of more primitive hominins, suggesting that the fossil could derive from interbreeding.
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If confirmed, the finding would lend support to the 鈥渕ultiregional hypothesis鈥. This says that modern humans descend from Homo sapiens coming out of Africa who then interbred with more primitive humans on other continents. In contrast, the prevailing 鈥渙ut of Africa鈥 hypothesis holds that modern humans are the direct descendants of people who spread out of Africa to other continents around 100,000 years ago.
The study will appear in later this month.
Out of China?
鈥淸This paper] acts to reject the theory that modern humans are of uniquely African origin and supports the notion that emerging African populations mixed with natives they encountered,鈥 says , a proponent of the multiregional hypothesis at the University of Michigan.
Others disagreed. Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, questioned whether the find was a true Homo sapiens.
鈥淵ou need to keep in mind that 鈥Homo sapiens鈥 for most Chinese scholars is not limited to anatomically modern humans,鈥 he says. 鈥淔or many of them, it is all 鈥榩ost Homo erectus,鈥 humans.鈥
of London鈥檚 Natural History Museum said that it was too early to make far-reaching conclusions. 鈥淔rom the parts preserved, this fossil could just as likely be related to preceding archaic humans, or even to the Neanderthals, who at times seem to have extended their range towards China.鈥
The present analysis of the mandible focused almost exclusively on determining the fossil鈥檚 age. The researchers said a follow-up study would give a more complete treatment on what exactly the find represents.
