摘要
二十一世纪以来,中国的人类演化研究取得了前所未有的进展,先后发现或报道了田园洞、黄龙洞、智人洞、陆那洞、道县等晚更新世人类化石,以及澎湖、许昌、华龙洞、夏河、哈尔滨等中更新世晚期人类化石.这些化石丰富了中国古人类化石记录,为深入研究中国古人类演化提供了重要的信息.作为多学科参与的人类演化研究,除古人类化石发现与研究外,国内学者在与人类演化相关的旧石器考古、古人类遗址年代、古DNA、古蛋白等方面也开展了大量的研究.这些研究取得了很多新的发现和认识,就中国古人类演化的一些学术问题进行了理论探索,有力地推动了中国的人类演化研究.本文以古人类化石发现与研究为核心,对二十一世纪以来中国人类演化研究重要进展进行梳理并就一些学术问题进行讨论.
Abstract
Starting in the early 20th century,the human evolution studies in China have experienced more than one hundred years.Since beginning of the 21st century,impressive advances have been achieved on the human evolution studies in China.Except for discovering abundant hominin fossils,a series of field work and lab studies have been conducted in Paleolithic archaeology,chronology,and ancient DNA and protein,which indicate the human evolution studies in China have become a wide range of multidisciplinary research.Among these advances,the discoveries of hominin fossils and related studies in the past twenty years are most important,which mainly touched the issues of modem human origin and late Middle Pleistocene hominin evolution in East Asia.The discovery of Late Pleistocene hominin fossils in Tianyuandong with AMS 14C dating put the emergence of early modern human in East Asia 40 kaBP which made the studies of modem human origin in China under more accurate dating frame.The subsequent hominin fossil discoveries from Huanglongdong,Zhirendong,Lunadong and Daoxian from the Late Pleistocene further made the appearing time of the modem humans in China as early as 80 to 120 kaBP.Since 21st century,the discoveries of the late Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils from Penghu,Xuchang,Hualongdong,Xiahe and Harbin greatly enrich the hominin fossil records in China and provide important information for the research into human evolution in East Asia.During this period,studies on these newly discovered and other late Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils including Dali,Jinniushan,Xujiayao,Maba and Tongzi have been conducted with most impressive finding that the fossil morphology and evolutionary patterns of the late Middle Pleistocene hominins exhibit very complicated diversities.The morphologies of these fossils are characterized by both derived and archaic features.Some of the fossils exhibit similar or even the same morphological features as in modern humans but others still keep more archaic features.Such a finding suggests the transition from archaic to modem morphology occurred as early as 300 kaBP or emergence of modern humans in China may be much earlier than previously believed.The late Middle Pleistocene hominins living in different regions of China do not have the equal contribution to the formation of modem humans.Simply classifying all the hominins of this time period into archaic Homo sapiens cannot accurately reflect the evolutionary patterns of late Middle Pleistocene hominins in China.As the research of multidisciplinary approaches,the studies of different fields in human evolution have also been conducted in the past twenty years.The present author believes that four studies represent the most important advances in Paleolithic archaeology in China.These studies touched the issues of Middle Pleistocene Acheulean-like stone technology in China,the earliest human occupation in Tibetan Plateau by 40 kaBP to 30 kaBP,the late Middle Pleistocene Levallois stone-tool technology in China and modern human behaviors of ochre processing and tool use in China 40 kaBP.The dating the hominin fossil on the stone tool sites of Xiaochangliang and Majuangou in Nihewan Basin,Shangchen in Lantian updated the opinion of the earliest time for hominin arrival to Northeast Asia and East Asia 1.66 MaBP and 2.13 MaBP respectively.The studies on fossil taphonomy,ancient DNA and ancient protein have also been carried out.A series of new discoveries and understanding have been achieved from these works,and academic explorations on some key issues on the human evolution in China have also been discussed.In this paper,centered on the hominin fossil discovery and research,important advances on the human evolution in China are reviewed and key issues discussed.
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