Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Recent research suggests that Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of modern humans, may have arrived in China significantly earlier than previously believed.
A team of geoscientists and anthropologists, including Christopher J. Bae from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, has found evidence that H. erectus was present in Yunxian, China, 1.7 million years ago, approximately 600,000 years earlier than prior estimates.
Reconstruction of the Yunxian Homo erectus. Credit: Xiaobo Feng
Previously, the oldest known H. erectus fossils from Yunxian were dated to about 1.1 million years ago. This new timeline offers important insights into early human migration patterns and indicates that our ancestors may have dispersed across continents much sooner—and perhaps more effectively—than scientists had assumed. These findings could lead to a significant revision of our understanding of early human history in East Asia.
“While Homo erectus, our distant ancestor, is widely recognized to have originated in Africa before dispersing into Eurasia, the precise timeline of its arrival in eastern Asia was unknown,” said Bae. “Using the combination of the Yunxian H. erectus fossils and burial dating data, we have now been able to recreate a fairly robust dating reconstruction of when these hominins appeared in eastern Asia.”
The researchers determined the age of the Yunxian fossils using aluminum-26 (Al-26) and beryllium-10 (Be-10) burial dating. According to lead author Hua Tu, this method involves analyzing aluminum and beryllium isotopes found in sediment from the same stratigraphic layer as the fossils. By measuring these isotopes, scientists can determine when the sediment—and therefore the fossils—were first buried and shielded from cosmic radiation.
“Al-26 and Be-10 isotopes are produced when cosmic rays hit quartz minerals. Once buried deeply underground, isotope production stops and radioactive decay takes over. By using aluminum’s and beryllium’s known decay rates, and comparing the ratio of the two types of atoms left in sediment samples surrounding a fossil, researchers can calculate how long a fossil has been buried.
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“This is key, as traditional carbon-14 dating is limited to the last 50,000 years, while the Al-26/Be-10 method allows researchers to accurately date materials as far back as five million years ago,” said Tu, from the Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University and College of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University.
Bae added, “These findings challenge long-held assumptions regarding when the earliest hominins are thought to have moved out of Africa and into Asia. While these results are significant, the mystery of exactly when H. erectus first appeared and last appeared in the region remains.
“If H. erectus was not the earliest occupant to reach Asia, alternative species must be considered. The updated chronology for Yunxian is a critical step toward resolving these debates.”
The study was published in the journal Science Advances
Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer
