Earliest modern human dated to 120,000 years ago found in southern China

[Kristiina]

According to recent ”A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture”, D and E separated c. 70 000 years ago and C and GT separated a bit earlier (p. 3, http://genome.cshlp.org/content/suppl/2015/02/18/gr.186684.114.DC1/Supplemental_Figures.pdf)
That is not very far from Homo Sapiens being found 80 000 ago in China. So these teeth might belong to Y line DE or CT if they are 70-90 kya old and to DT if they are older. Separation of B and DT is set at 100 kya. However, I have seen people claiming that the age of recent lines tends to be overestimated and the age of old branches underestimated. But of course, the Y line of these modern humans can be an unknown older branch of our Y haplotree.

The recent mtDNA N paper gave new age estimations to different N haplogroups:
L3, Khor Angar, Djibouti 70.8 kya
N11, Kunming China, 75,9 kya
S, Darwin, Australia, 46.8 kya
This means that the age of only N11 in China is almost 80 kya.

 

[LeBrok]

there are no bones, just teeth

but they can extract DNA from teeth, right?

Yes they can.

 

[Angela]

Some reactions to the paper:

Chris Springer:
View attachment 7448

Dienekes:
"Another (?)-worthy paper has just appeared in Nature in the heels of the African ancient genome paper. Time will tell how these worldview-altering discoveries will change the story of Mankind, and a degree of skepticism is warranted. In the view I've held for a few years, modern humans expanded to Arabia before 100 thousand years ago, started leaving it 70 thousand years ago as the ecological situation worsened due to desertification and broke through the "Neandertal barrier" between 70-50 thousand years ago when they developed the skills and technology to overcome them.

The new paper claims that modern humans were in China 80 thousand years ago and came to Europe much later because Neandertal represented a barrier to successful entry to Europe. This begs the question of how they reached China without encountering Neandertals, as Neandertals were also in West Asia where -presumably- they passed through to get to China. A coastal route to south China would explain away this problem, but the coastal migration is usually envisioned much later, at around 60 thousand years ago. On top of that, how did Chinese end up having equal (or more) levels of Neandertals admixture if modern humans first went to China and later moved west and successfully outcompeted the Neandertals. How were they able to do so eventually? (There is no evidence that the kind of advantages associated with behavioral modernity first emerged in East Asia). It's possible that there were 80 thousand year-old modern humans in China (just as there were 100 thousand year-old modern humans in Israel), but that the later East Asians are not descended from them.

One would think that science would present an increasingly reasonable and consistent picture of the past, but it seems that we're a very long way from the point where the dust settles and the puzzle pieces start falling into place. "
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/2015/10/modern-humans-in-china-80000-years-ago.html

So, I guess Out of Arabia is looking better and better?

 

[Miqui Rumba]

The problem is that in India was not reported any discovery about ancient sapiens further more 70,000 y.a. When new samples in South-West Asia will appear then we will know how and where ancient asians interbred with denisovan and neanderthals.

 

[bicicleur 2]

The problem is that in India was not reported any discovery about ancient sapiens further more 70,000 y.a. When new samples in South-West Asia will appear then we will know how and where ancient asians interbred with denisovan and neanderthals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soanian

Soanian culture existed 500 - 125 ka in northern Pakistan & India.

Why did these humanoids dissapear ? Where they Denisovans ?

125 ka they may have been replaced by these early modern humans, but there is no trace of them.

 

[oriental]

[h=3]Human remains left by predators[/h]The teeth were found in a cave system along with the remains of mammals, including a extinct giant panda, and other animal species. No stone tools were uncovered, leading researchers to believe that humans had never lived in the cave and that the teeth had been left there by predators.

The research team now hope to DNA test the teeth to determine the origin of the Daoxian population.



"The teeth are basically the same as yours and mine," Liu said.
The teeth were so old they could not be tested using carbon dating, so scientists had to date the surrounding calcite deposits and human remains in the cave to estimate their age.
"They really look modern, but they are very old," Martinón-Torres said of the teeth. "And they are very old also particularly when we take into account that they were found in China."

Wonder if it(they) was(were) tiger(s), bear(s) or some other carnivore.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/15/china/china-teeth-cave-nature/