| Autor: |
Liu, Wu, Athreya, Sheela, Xing, Song, Wu, Xiujie |
| Rok vydání: |
2021 |
| DOI: |
10.6084/m9.figshare.17708366.v1 |
| Popis: |
Historical views of Asia as an evolutionary ���backwater��� are associated with the idea that Homo erectus experienced long periods of stasis and ultimately went extinct. However, recent discoveries of well-dated Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils in China have considerably challenged these ideas and provide sufficient data to propose a testable model that explains the patterning of variation in Middle Pleistocene China, and why it changed over time. A series of hominin fossil studies comparing earlier-Middle and later-Middle Pleistocene groups confirm that the expressions of certain traits shift around 300 ka. Fossils from the later Middle Pleistocene are more variable with a mix of archaic traits as well as ones that are common in Western Eurasian early H. sapiens and Neanderthals. The period around 300 ka appears to have been a critical turning point for later Middle Pleistocene morphological changes in China. It coincides with a phase of climatic instability in the Northern Hemisphere between Marine Isotope Stages 12 and 10 that would have led to changes in gene flow patterning, and regional population survival/extinction. This localized and testable model can be used for future explorations of hominin evolution in later Pleistocene eastern Eurasia.This article is part of the theme issue ���How Chinese fossils and palaeontological research impact our understanding of major evolutionary transitions���. |
| Databáze: |
OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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