Guanjun ShenInstitute for Coastal andQuaternary Studies, NanjingNormal University, Nanjing210097, P. R. China.E-mails: gjshen@njnu.edu.cn;clzhou@njnu.edu.cn

Wei WangNatural History Museum ofGuangxi Zhuang AutonomousRegion, Nanning 530012,P. R. China. E-mail:wangwei@public.nn.gx.cn

Qian WangInstitute of VertebratePaleontology andPaleoanthropology, AcademiaSinica, Beijing 100044,P. R. China. E-mail:wangq@anatomy.wits.ac.za

Jianxin Zhao &Kenneth CollersonDepartment of Earth Sciences,University of Queensland,Brisbane QLD 4072,Australia. E-mails:j.zhao@earthsciences.uq.edu.au;k.collerson@mailbox.uq.edu.au

Chunlin ZhouInstitute for Coastal andQuaternary Studies, NanjingNormal University, Nanjing210097, P. R. China.E-mails: gjshen@njnu.edu.cn;clzhou@njnu.edu.cn

Phillip V. TobiasThe Sterkfontein ResearchUnit, School of AnatomicalSciences, University ofWitwatersrand, Johannesburg2193, South Africa. E-mail:tobiaspv@anatomy.wits.ac.za

Received 24 January 2002Revision received21 July 2002 andaccepted 9 September 2002

Keywords: Liujiang hominid,U-series dating, Speleothemcalcite, Origin of modernhumans.

U-Series dating of Liujiang hominid site inGuangxi, Southern China

It has been established that modern humans were living in the Levantand Africa ca. 100 ka ago. Hitherto, this has contrasted with thesituation in China where no unequivocal specimens of this specieshave been securely dated to more than 30 ka. Here we present theresults of stratigraphic studies and U-series dating of the TongtianyanCave, the discovery site of the Liujiang hominid, which representsone of the few well-preserved fossils of modern Homo sapiens inChina. The human fossils are inferred to come from either a refillingbreccia or a primarily deposited gravel-bearing sandy clay layer. In theformer case, which is better supported, the fossils would date to atleast �68 ka, but more likely to �111–139 ka. Alternatively, theywould be older than �153 ka. Both scenarios would make theLiujiang hominid one of the earliest modern humans in East Asia,possibly contemporaneous with the earliest known representativesfrom the Levant and Africa. Parallel studies on other Chineselocalities have provided supporting evidence for the redating ofLiujiang, which may have important implications for the origin ofmodern humans.

� 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Journal of Human Evolution (2002) 43, 817–829doi:10.1053/jhev.2002.0601Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

0047–2484/02/120817+13 $35.00/0 � 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

818 . ET AL.

Figure 1. Map showing location of Tongtianyan Cave, the site of the Liujiang hominid, and the nearbyhominid localities of Bailiandong and Ganqian Caves discussed in the text.

Introduction

The Liujiang hominid site, or the cave ofTongtianyan, is located in a Permian lime-stone hill �16 km south of Liuzhou City insouthern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Auton-omous Region (24�10�59�N, 109�25�56�E)(Figure 1). In 1958, while digging thedeposits in the cave for fertilizer, workersfrom the nearby Xinxin Farm found analmost complete human skull and severalpieces of postcranial bones. Great care wastaken by the head of the farm, who collectedthe fossils and immediately informed theInstitute of Vertebrate Paleontology andPaleoanthropology, Academia Sinica, of theimportant discovery (Woo, 1959; Pei,1965).

The human skeleton was identified as oneof the earliest representatives of modernHomo sapiens in East Asia and attributedto the Late Pleistocene (Woo, 1959).Mammalian fossils recovered from the samecave include Pongo sp., Ailuropoda melano-leuca fovealis, Rhinoceros sinensis, Stegodonorientalis, Megatapirus augustus, Sus sp. etc.,forming a typical Late Pleistocene

Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna commonly foundin southern China (Pei, 1965; Huang,1979). No trace of human cultural remainshas been discovered in the cave.

For about 20 years, the origin of modernhumans has been the subject of an intensivedebate between exponents of two majorcompeting hypotheses, multiregional origins(e.g., Wolpoff et al., 1984; Wu, 1999;Wolpoff et al., 2001) vs. ‘‘recent out ofAfrica’’ (e.g., Stringer, 1988, 1994, 2000).The accurate dating of relevant finds is basicto addressing this controversial topic. Withnew and refined dating techniques (Wintle,1996), important changes regarding thechronology of modern H. sapiens havebeen made over the past two decades(Grun & Stringer, 1991). As an example,the antiquity of Qafzeh and Skhul in theLevant more than doubled, from the�40 ka previously estimated based on mor-phological and archaeological evidence, to�90–120 ka using thermoluminescence(TL) dating of burnt flints (Valladas et al.,1988; Mercier et al., 1993) and electron spinresonance (ESR) dating of tooth enamel(Schwarcz et al., 1988; Stringer et al., 1989).

819-

The redating of the Levantine hominidsbolstered the out-of-Africa hypothesis,which was further supported by early dateson Border Cave (Grun et al., 1990a) andKlasies River Mouth Cave (Grun et al.,1990b) in South Africa.

In contrast, only a small proportion of therelevant sites in China has been numericallydated. Classical 14C and U-series determi-nations on fossil materials remain the mostutilized chronometers, but both are oflimited reliability (Taylor, 1996; Rae et al.,1989). It is possible that the Chinese fossilrecord may suffer from a compressedchronology (Shen & Wang, 2000), just astheir European and Levantine counterpartsdid more than a decade ago (Grun &Stringer, 1991). For finds in China to becompared on equal terms, a re-study withwell-established dating techniques isneeded.

As one of the few well-preserved fossilrepresentatives of modern H. sapiens inChina, the chronology of the Liujianghominid is important for reconstructing thehistory of recent human evolution. Pre-viously, while conventional 14C dating of thesite gave ages of 2·9�0·1 ka and >40 ka forthe capping and the second flowstone layersrespectively, 230Th/234U dating on the latteryielded an age of 67+6

�5 ka, possibly markingthe minimum age of the hominid remains(Yuan et al., 1986). Five mammalian teethwere also analyzed, giving basically concord-ant 230Th/234U and 231Pa/235U ages rangingfrom 95 to 227 ka (Yuan et al., 1986).However, as the stratigraphic contexts ofboth the calcite and fossil samples had notbeen verified, and as the appearance ofmodern H. sapiens in China has generallybeen regarded as being younger than 40 or50 ka (Wu, 1989), the dates obtained byYuan and colleagues, especially those fromfossil teeth, have been largely overlooked.Thus, the most frequently cited age forthe Liujiang hominid is �20 ka, inferredfrom the 14C dating of the morphologically

similar Minatogawa remains of Japan(Stringer, 1988; Wu, 1988; Brown, 1998;Rightmire, 1998; Jin & Su, 2000).

The validity of U-series dating of carefullyselected, pure, compact and well-crystallized cave calcites has been well-demonstrated (Ludwig et al., 1992;Schwarcz, 1992). The above-cited U-seriesdate for the second flowstone layer maysignal an early appearance of modern H.sapiens in southern China, if the strati-graphic relation between the flowstonelayers and the hominid remains is estab-lished. However, the stratigraphic positionof the Liujiang skeleton has remainedunclear. In an effort to better understand thesituation, we made a field investigation ofthe site in early 1998. Besides the previouslyreported ones, several more flowstone layersand other forms of speleothem formationswere found intercalated in the depositionalsequence. Calcite samples suitable forU-series dating were taken and analyzed. Inlight of the new temporal framework, carefulstudy of the early reports relating to thestratigraphic context of the hominidskeleton and detailed field examinations ofthe extant depositional sequence werecarried out to determine the most probableprovenience of the hominid fossils. Theresults are presented in this paper.

Stratigraphy and sample positions

Tongtianyan is a labyrinthine cave system,in which the deposits are now preserved onlyin an area of �70 m2 near the entrance andin the North Corridor, the remaining partshaving been largely removed by fertilizerminers (Figure 2). Nevertheless, from theexisting cross-section (Figure 3) and theresidual materials on the walls and ceilingit is possible to reconstruct the strati-graphic correlation between the removedand preserved deposits.

Overall, the stratigraphic sequence canbe divided into three main depositional

820 . ET AL.

Figure 2. Plane figure of the Tongtianyan cave system. The area from the Entrance to the line AB is a zonewhere the deposits have been well preserved, while between AB and CD the deposits have been partlypreserved, and beyond CD the deposits have been almost completely removed. The hominid skeletonprobably came from a position some 2·5 m further into the cave from AB, near the southern wall and�1·2 m below the capping flowstone.

Figure 3. Sketch showing three depositional units and Refilling Breccia on the extant cross-section, whichcorresponds to the line AB in Figure 1. Samples for dating were collected from the five flowstone layersand other speleothem formations. Here the encircled skull denotes the probable provenience of thehominid skeleton.

units and a cone-shaped Refilling Breccia(Figure 3). The Upper Unit consists of siltyclay sandwiched in flowstone layers with atotal thickness of 60–90 cm. This unit may

be sub-divided into three levels. Level 1 is acapping flowstone layer (FL1) up to�15 cm thick covering all of the deposits.This flowstone is mostly porous, friable and

821-

poorly crystallized. However, localized sub-layers of quite pure calcite can be found,from which samples suitable for U-seriesdating may be collected. Level 2 consists of40–70 cm of silty clay, which is character-ized by fine laminae, paucity of clasts andlack of carbonate cementation, indicatingformation in stagnant water. A localized,thin and heavily contaminated flowstonelayer lies in its middle. Level 3 is the secondflowstone layer (FL2). Near the northernwall FL2 is quite pure, well crystallized andup to �25 cm thick. It becomes thinner andless pure in the middle, and graduallydegrades into calcrete near the southernwall. Seven samples were taken from thisunit, of them LJR-1, 3 and 20 are fromsub-layers of FL1, and LJR-2, 4, 5 and 14are from different parts of FL2.

The Middle Unit is composed of a �5 mthick fossiliferous, gravel-bearing andcarbonate-cemented sandy clay. Beingapparently uniform in lithologic compo-sition, the subdivision of this unit awaitsfurther sedimentological study. Near thenorthern wall, 0–15 cm below FL2, is thethird flowstone layer (FL3), which is rela-tively pure, well crystallized and of a thick-ness up to �12 cm. 20–50 cm lower still isthe fourth flowstone layer (FL4). Both FL3and FL4 come to an abrupt end �1·5 mfrom the North Wall, the fractured zonebeing overlaid by the down-warping FL2.About 1 m below FL4 is the �15 cm thickfifth flowstone layer (FL5). A total of foursamples was taken from this unit—LJR-6from FL3, LJR-31 from FL4, and LJR-9and 19 from FL5.

The jagged fractures of FL3 and FL4 anda disconformity �1·5 m further to the southprovide evidence of a flood washout andre-depositional event. The Refilling Breccia,being �3 m wide at the top and morethan 1·5 m thick, cuts into the upper partof the Middle Unit (Figure 3). Thisloosely cemented breccia is composedmainly of flint and marl fragments, different

in composition from the cave’s limestonewalls, but similar to nearby hills. Many ofthe gravels are irregular and angular, indi-cating their outside provenience and short-distance transportation. As no signs ofbedding can be recognized, the breccia wasmost probably accumulated in a relativelyshort span of time. LJR-8 is a small piece ofbroken flowstone mixed with gravels nearthe top of the Refilling Breccia. Some 1·2 mbelow FL1, at about the same depth as theclaimed position of the hominid skeleton(Pei, 1965), a speleothem formation in afissure was taken as LJR-17, its nature as asecondary calcite vein being established byits natural form, its conformity with thefissure, and the direction of its laminae.

Between lines AB and CD (Figure 2),there are remnant deposits, resemblingthose of the Middle Unit in lithologic com-position, adhering to the upper walls andceiling. It may be inferred that this section ofthe corridor was entirely filled before thewashout event. We recovered severalmammalian fossils, including two rhinocerostooth fragments which were sampled asLJR-33 and 34, from remnant deposits onthe ceiling and along the uppermost part ofthe South Wall respectively.

The Lower Unit, composed of more than2 m of fluvial sands with lenses of clay, issituated at the base of the depositionalsequence.

Results and discussions

Conventional alpha spectrometry (AS) wasused to measure U-Th isotopic ratios(Ivanovich & Harmon, 1992). For betterprecision, six key samples were analyzed byone of us (JXZ) using thermal ionizationmass spectrometric (TIMS) techniques(Edwards et al., 1986/87). The U-Th iso-topic ratios and derived age results using ASand TIMS are presented in Tables 1 and 2respectively. The agreement betweenreplicates and between AS and TIMS

822 . ET AL.

Tab

le1

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spec

trom

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yses

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site

Sam

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Sam

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orre

cted

(ka)

(230T

h/232T

h)0=

1C

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2

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70·

154�

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623

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118

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823-

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omL

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site

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hag

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a)C

orre

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(ka)

(230T

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h)0=

1C

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cted

(ka)

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h/232T

h)0=

2

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-1F

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0·19

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391·

1696

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0·15

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2018

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0·3

15·8

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560

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0·78

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824 . ET AL.

measurements, and the conformity of thedates with the stratigraphic sequence indi-cate overall reliability of the measurements.

The dates on FL1 indicate that this flow-stone layer was formed between 4 and 20 ka(Tables 1 and 2). Five analyses on foursamples from FL2 gave consistent ASresults (Table 1). The specimen of LJR-2for TIMS was a slice from FL2, sub-samplesLJR-2-1, -2-2 and -2-3 representing theupper, middle and lower parts respectively.Their TIMS U-series dates indicate thatFL2 was formed between 61�1 and68�1 ka (Table 2), the latter marking theminimum age of the underlying RefillingBreccia. Replicated TIMS determinationson LJR-6 from FL3 and on LJR-8 from thecalcite fragment gave consistent dates withmean values at 153�2 and 139�4 ka(Table 2), setting the earliest limits for thewashout event and for the topmost part ofthe Refilling Breccia respectively. The repli-cated AS analyses of LJR-17, from the cal-cite vein cross-cutting the middle part of thebreccia, yield a mean age of 111�4 ka,indicating that the horizon was formed nolater than this date (Table 1). The RefillingBreccia is thus securely bracketed between68 and 153 ka. If we take into account itspresumably rapid formation, as shown bythe lack of stratification, its best age estimateis between 111 and 139 ka.

As mentioned above, the stratigraphicposition of the Liujiang skeleton has beenclouded with uncertainty. There are twoearly reports that relate the circumstances inwhich the hominid skeleton was found.Youheng Li, the first geologist to arrive atthe site, was told that the human andAiluropoda skeletons were ‘‘embedded in thedeposits of unconsolidated breccia’’, whileother mammalian fossils were in the ‘‘con-solidated yellowish deposits’’ (cited by Woo,1959). Having also personally visited thecave in 1958 and 1960, Pei (1965) dividedthe then exposed depositional sequenceunder the capping flowstone into upper and

lower layers separated by a flowstone layer.The upper layer consists of grayish-yellowsandy clay containing few fossils, and thelower one of reddish-yellow, fossiliferoussandy clay containing limestone and flintgravels. The human and Ailuropodaskeletons were retrieved from the lowerpart of the lower layer, �1·2 m below thecapping flowstone (Pei, 1965).

The accounts of Li and Pei were basedpartly on information provided by thefertilizer miners who made the discovery andpartly on their own field observation. Theveracity of Li’s account is shown by theprecise correspondence between its ‘‘un-consolidated breccia’’ and ‘‘consolidatedyellowish deposits’’, on the one hand, andthe Refilling Breccia and Middle Unit inthe stratigraphy presented here. Similarly,Figure 8 in Pei (1965) matches quite closelyto the extant cross-section. So these earlieraccounts appear to be basically sound,although some imprecision might haveresulted from the fact that the discovery wasmade by non-specialists and from the lack ofstratigraphic study. The absence of anybreccia formation in Pei’s account is prob-ably a misreading. To judge by its scale onthe present-day cross-section, it seemshardly possible that the Refilling Breccia wasentirely missing from the sequence duringPei’s time, which would have been �2·5 mfurther into the cave. Most probably Peifailed to distinguish the Refilling Brecciafrom the primarily deposited Middle Unit.Our experience tells us that without detailedstudies of the stratigraphy it is possible tomake such an error. Initially, we were alsoconfused by the lateral compositionaldifference along the profile and tended toconsider it as a facies change.

If we accept the possible discrepancy inPei’s account, the association of the hominidfossils with the Refilling Breccia seems themost plausible (Woo, 1959). This woulddate them to 68–153 ka, and more likely to111–139 ka. However, the possibility that

825-

Table 3 230Th/234U and 227Th/230Th dating of two rhinoceros teeth fragments from the Liujiang site

Sample

238U(ppm) 230Th/232Th 234U/238U 230Th/234U

230Th age(ka) 227Th/230Th

227Th age(ka)

LJR-33 91·6 223 1·472�0·023 0·648�0·022 106�6 0·0454�0·0023 87+19�16

LJR-34 240 307 1·472�0·024 0·836�0·023 167�11 0·0417�0·0009 111+13�11

All errors are �1�.

the hominid fossils were included in thecarbonate-cemented sandy clay of theMiddle Unit cannot be excluded. In thiscase the hominid fossils would be older than153 ka as defined by the overlying FL3. Thisdate, though seemingly anomalous, is com-patible with a recent claim that BC1, amodern hominid cranial vault from BorderCave, South Africa, may be as old as 170 ka(Grun & Beaumont, 2001).

In addition, we note that both the reportspoint to the association of the hominidfossils with limestone and flint gravels (Woo,1959; Pei, 1965). Moreover, Pei (1965)pinpointed a position in the lower part of thelower layer, �1·2 m below the cappingflowstone as the provenience of the hominidskeleton. It seems highly unlikely that thehuman remains were buried in the silty clayof the Upper Unit, which ranges in age from20 to 61 ka, or in the fluvial sands of theLower Unit, which is older than 280 ka.This argument is supported by the obser-vation that traces of calcrete are still foundadhering to the orbits, external auditorymeatus and endocranial cavity of the homi-nid cranium, and the ribs, vertebral columnand medullary cavities of the femora are stillheavily coated with calcrete matrix. Thisindicates that their provenience was the cal-cified Middle Unit or Refilling Breccia,rather than the carbonate-free Upper orLower Units.

Li (Woo, 1959) and Pei (1965) agreedthat most of the non-hominid mammalianfossils were derived from the consolidatedsandy clay. The dates from FL3, FL4 and

FL5 indicate that the Middle Unit wasformed from >280 to 153 ka. Such anearly and lengthy time interval explains the‘‘aberrant’’ U-series dates on fossil teethpreviously reported by Yuan et al. (1986).Using two U-series methods (Shen, 1996),we have dated the two rhinoceros teethfragments, LJR-33 and 34. The 230Th/234Uand 227Th/230Th isotopic ratios and ageresults are presented in Table 3. Thesedates, being in the range of 167�11 and87+19

�16 ka, are comparable with those ofYuan et al. (1986), and lend support to theobservation that the residual deposits onwalls and ceiling are remnants of the MiddleUnit. Tongtianyan has hitherto been widelyregarded as a type locality for the LatePleistocene Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna (Pei,1965; Huang, 1979). However, the presentresults demonstrate that the Liujiangmammalian assemblage is in fact lateMiddle Pleistocene in age. An importantrevision of the chronology of correlated sitesin southern China is required.

The above-cited dates seem surprisinglyold in view of previous age estimates for theLiujiang hominid (Stringer, 1988; Wu,1988; Brown, 1998; Rightmire, 1998; Jin &Su, 2000) and because up until now nospecimens of unequivocal modern H. sapiensin China have been securely dated to morethan 30 ka (Wu, 1989). However, support-ing evidence for this older date is providedby chronological studies on two neighbor-ing localities, Bailiandong and Ganqian(Tubo) Caves (Figure 1). Controlled exca-vations at the Bailiandong Cave led to the

826 . ET AL.

discovery of two hominid teeth, hundreds ofstone artefacts, and a rich collection ofmammalian fossils. The faunal compo-sition of its lower strata is similar to that ofLiujiang (Zhou, 1994). From Ganqian Cavea total of 17 hominid teeth have been found.The associated mammalian fossils, belong-ing to the Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna, havebeen assigned to the Late Pleistocene (Liet al., 1984; Wang et al., 1999). The humanteeth found at the two sites are similar tothose of present-day Chinese and, hence,have been classified as modern H. sapiens (Liet al., 1984; Zhou, 1994; Wang et al., 1999).Using U-series methods, a flowstone layeroverlying the hominid-bearing deposits atBailiandong has been dated to �160 ka(Shen et al., 2001a), while the capping flow-stone layer at Ganqian gave an age of 94 ka(Shen et al., 2001b), both marking the mini-mum age for the hominid teeth. Recently,Pan et al. (2002) dated two fossil teeth fromthe Lianhua Cave in Zhenjiang, JiangsuProvince, where a human tooth attributed tolate H. sapiens was found (Li et al., 1982).The results indicate that modern humansmight have been present in lower reaches ofthe Yangtze River in eastern China at�100 ka.

With well-developed superciliary arches,slightly receding forehead, small mastoidprocesses and weak muscular markings, theLiujiang hominid represents a funda-mentally ‘‘modern’’ individual, retainingjust a few primitive features (Woo, 1959). Inspite of the controversy over whether itrepresents an early type of Mongoloid(Woo, 1959; Brown, 1998), its classifi-cation as a modern H. sapiens has not beenchallenged. The present age estimate for thesite of Liujiang, together with those forBailiandong, Ganqian and Lianhua caves,indicate that modern humans were living inChina �100 ka ago, broadly contempor-aneous with their counterparts in Africaand south-western Asia. New age determi-nations for the Lake Mungo 3 human

skeleton from Australia are also considerablyolder than previously assumed (Thorneet al., 1999). These results, taken together,seem too early for modern H. sapiens inEast Asia to have arrived from Africa, evenby a coastal route (Stringer, 2000). Aneven deeper root for African modernH. sapiens, or a much earlier and quickermigration into East Asia would need to beposited to conform with the out-of-Africamodel.

While presenting chronological evidencefor a much earlier presence of modern H.sapiens in southern China, this paper posesthe following problems that require furtherstudy. First, the uncertain provenience ofthe Liujiang hominid fossils should beaddressed. The U-Th dating of hominidfossils with nondestructive gamma spec-trometry (Yokoyama & Nguyen, 1981) andof calcrete matrix on the fossils with TIMS(McDermott et al., 1996) are likely to shedlight on this problem. Second, two import-ant representatives of archaic H. sapiens inChina, from the sites of Maba (Wu & Peng,1959) and Xujiayao (Jia et al., 1979; Wu,1980), have been dated to 125–139 (Yuanet al., 1986) and 104–125 ka (Chen et al.,1982) respectively. This means that thehominids from Liujiang, Bailiandong,Ganqian and Lianhua Caves are nowinferred to be broadly contemporaneouswith, or even older than, these morphologi-cally more primitive specimens. For themoment we are not sure whether the age ofthe Maba and Xujiayao finds on re-datingwill be pushed earlier, or whether, as in theLevant, there was temporal overlap of twomorphologically different hominid popu-lations (Valladas et al., 1988; Schwarczet al., 1988; Stringer et al., 1989; Mercieret al., 1993). The resolution of the above-mentioned issues and further efforts to studyother modern H. sapiens sites in China willcontribute to clarifying the hotly debatedissues concerning the origin, dispersal andevolution of our own species.

827-

Conclusions

The stratigraphic sequence of the Liujianghominid site can be divided into Upper,Middle and Lower Units together with aRefilling Breccia resulting from a washoutand re-depositional event. The hominidfossils are likely to have come from theRefilling Breccia or from the primarilydeposited Middle Unit. In the former case,which is more probable, they would date tonot more recent than �68 ka, but morelikely to �111–139 ka. Alternatively, theywould be older than �153 ka. In eithercase the Liujiang hominid is revealed asone of the earliest modern humans in EastAsia, probably contemporaneous with theearliest known Levantine and Africanrepresentatives.

The early presence of modern humans inChina is supported by chronological studieson Bailiandong, Ganqian (Tubo) andLianhua Caves (Shen et al., 2001a,b; Panet al., 2002). Taken together, these differentlines of evidence indicate that, for the out-of-Africa model to remain plausible, itwould be necessary to demonstrate an evendeeper root for African modern H. sapiens,or an earlier and quicker migration into EastAsia. In the absence of evidence for either orboth, a rethinking of the out-of-Africa modelwould be required. On the other hand, thechronology of the Maba and Xujiayaoarchaic H. sapiens hominids should berestudied to explore the issue of a possiblecoexistence in China of two distinct hominidpopulations or species in the late MiddlePleistocene or early Late Pleistocene.

Acknowledgements

This project has been jointly supported bythe National Natural Science Foundation ofChina (40073020), the L. S. B. LeakeyFoundation (1998/99 general grant) and theWenner-Gren Foundation (Gr. 6501).

TIMS U-series analyses were supported bygrants from the Australian ResearchCouncil. We thank the government ofGuangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region forpermission and the Museum of LiuzhouCity for assistance with fieldwork. Dr SusanAnton is thanked for informing us about thecalcrete deposits on the hominid fossils,Professor Weiwen Huang for helping us inverification, and graduate students ofthe first author for performing chemicalanalyses.

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