Important results! Hualong Cave Man: A "checkpoint" in the transition from ancient humans to Homo sapiens in East Asia?

The Hualong Cave Site Academic Seminar was held in Dongzhi County, Chizhou City, Anhui Province from December 6 to 8. Experts and scholars from China, the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Japan and other places discussed and believed that the Hualong Cave people were the earliest ancient humans in East Asia to transition from archaic humans to Homo sapiens, and the Hualong Cave Site is the most important place to explore human evolution, diffusion and behavior.

01 Is it necessary to update the knowledge in the textbooks ?

Many textbooks tell a straightforward story: A species of Australopithecus in Africa gave rise to Homo habilis, the earliest member of the genus Homo. Homo habilis gave rise to Homo erectus in Africa, which gave rise to Homo heidelbergensis, which gave rise to two lineages:

One group was the Neanderthals, who were concentrated in Europe and the Near East and became an extinct branch;

One of the descendants survived successfully, and we are modern humans.

As more and more Chinese fossils are unearthed, scientists around the world have come to realize that the story of human evolution is far more complicated than what is presented in textbooks.

Exactly one hundred years after the first ancient human fossil was unearthed in China, Liu Wu and Wu Xiujie, researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced their latest research results on the ancient human fossils in Hualong Cave. In this site hidden deep in the mountains of Anhui Province, the team of scientists discovered more than 30 ancient human fossils, representing about 13 individuals. The number is rare in the world.

02 The Secret of Hualong Cave Ruins

The Hualongdong site was discovered at the end of 1988. It is an important ancient human site discovered in my country after the Zhoukoudian site in Beijing, and contains abundant evidence of human activities such as human fossils and stone artifacts. Since 2013, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Dongzhi County Culture and Tourism Bureau have formed a joint archaeological excavation team to conduct multiple systematic excavations.

The excavation site of Hualong Cave Ruins. (Photo by Qi Fang)

Wu Xiujie, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that in the excavation in 2024, a total of 11 ancient human fossils were unearthed at the Hualong Cave site, including a well-preserved metatarsal bone; more than 40 stone artifacts, a large number of mammal fossils, and three reptile fossils were also found. So far, a total of about 20 individuals of ancient humans (including a relatively complete ancient human skull), more than 400 stone artifacts made and used by ancient humans, a large number of bone fragments with traces of artificial cutting and chopping, and more than 80 vertebrate fossils have been discovered.

Wu Xiujie said: "Through a comprehensive study of multiple methods such as isotope dating, faunal composition analysis and stratigraphic comparison, we determined that the ancient humans in Hualong Cave lived about 300,000 years ago. The face and mandible of the Hualong Cave people have begun to evolve towards modern humans, with flat faces, high eye sockets, and slender skulls, and the prototype of the chin, a signature feature of modern humans, has appeared."

Wu Xiujie, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows some fossils unearthed from the Hualong Cave site. (Photo by Qi Fang)

03 Hualong Cave Man : A “ checkpoint ” in the transition from ancient humans in East Asia to Homo sapiens ?

At the seminar, the participating expert representatives reached three consensuses: First, the Hualong Cave site is the most important ancient human site that contains abundant human fossils, a large number of stone artifacts and mammalian fossils. It is the most important place to explore human evolution, diffusion and behavior. Second, the Hualong Cave people are the Middle Pleistocene ancient humans with the most characteristics of Homo sapiens (modern humans) in East Asia to date, and are also the earliest ancient humans in East Asia to transition from archaic humans to Homo sapiens. Third, the Hualong Cave site is the most ideal place to analyze the emergence of modern human behavior in the process of human evolution, and the stone artifacts associated with humans provide important research materials for exploring the behavior of ancient humans.

At the same time, experts and scholars also issued two suggestions. First, the reasons for the collapse of the Hualong Cave site are complex, and the causes of the cave's formation, collapse and age remain to be explored. It is recommended to strengthen multidisciplinary and multi-method research on it. Second, there is still great potential to discover more ancient human fossils and their survival clues in the Hualong Cave site and its surrounding areas. It is recommended to expand the scope of excavation and investigation.

Source: Science Popularization China Comprehensive Guangming Daily