Abstract
Recent studies reveal high degrees of morphological diversity in Late Pleistocene humans from East Asia. This variability was interpreted as complex demographic patterns with several migrations and possible survival of archaic groups. However, lack of well-described, reliably classified and accurately dated sites has seriously limited understanding of human evolution in terminal Pleistocene. Here we report a 15,000 years-old H. sapiens (Dushan 1) in South China with unusual mosaic features, such as large dental dimensions, cingulum-like structures at the dentine level in the posterior dentition and expression of a “crown buccal vertical groove complex”, all of which are uncommon in modern humans and more typically found in Middle Pleistocene archaic humans. They could represent the late survival of one of the earliest modern humans to settle in an isolated region of southern China and, hence, the retention of primitive-like traits. They could also represent a particularity of this group and, hence, reflect a high degree of regional variation. Alternatively, these features may be the result of introgression from some late-surviving archaic population in the region. Our study demonstrates the extreme variability of terminal Pleistocene populations in China and the possibility of a complex demographic story in the region.
Highlights
As a key region of Late Pleistocene human evolution, East Asia has for the last ten years been the source of remarkable new insights into the origin, evolution and interaction of modern humans
The morphology of the terminal Pleistocene human fossils from Maludong and Longlin, both in Southwest China could be indicative of complex demographic patterns, with several human migrations and possible survival of archaic populations[21,22,23] their relationship with other Late Pleistocene-Holocene populations from mainland Southeast Asia remains unclear[24,25]
The analysis and comparisons of the metric and non-metric traits of Dushan 1 teeth with those of various fossil hominins and recent modern humans in the present study indicate that both the maxillary and mandibular dentitions of Dushan 1 exhibit a mosaic morphological pattern combining primitive and derived traits
Summary
As a key region of Late Pleistocene human evolution, East Asia has for the last ten years been the source of remarkable new insights into the origin, evolution and interaction of modern humans. In the general context of a taxonomically more diverse scenario, the morphology and evolution of hominins in the late part of the Late Pleistocene, in particular, have been the subject of increasing attention Both morphological and genetic analyses of the populations that inhabited East Asia during this period reveal a high diversity that has been interpreted as evidence of a coexistence of more than one hominin lineage and/or the Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China. The identification of ancient mt-DNA and Y-DNA lineages in Southwest China has led to the definition of this region as a “hotspot of human diversity”[19,20,23] Despite these advances, the detailed morphological pattern, diversity and evolutionary implications of the terminal Pleistocene hominins in Southern China need further investigation. The metrics and both the external (outer enamel surface, OES) and internal (enamel dentine junction, EDJ) morphology of Dushan 1 are collected and compared to a large sample of fossil and contemporary Homo sapiens as well as some archaic Homo populations from East Asia
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