A December 3, 2024 (open access) monograph published by the Cambridge University Press comprehensively reviews the historical population genetics of East Asia and its vicinity, with associated linguistic and cultural implications. It is one volume in a larger series about Ancient East Asia.
I'll discuss and analyze this wide ranging 90 page review article as time allows in the future.
Hat tip to Language Log.
11 comments:
does this cover neanderthal and denisovans dna in humans
Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08420-x
"does this cover neanderthal and denisovans dna in humans" This is discussed in the review article. "Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture" I saw this.
High-precision U-series dating of Panxian Dadong hominin site, Guizhou Province, southwestern China
Author links open overlay panelXiaochao Che a, Fei Han b
, Xingsheng Zhang c, Bo Cao d, Ping Xiao e, Guanjun Shen f, Jianxin Zhao g
Abstract
Panxian Dadong, an important hominin cave site in Guizhou Province, southwestern China, has yielded significant discoveries, including four hominin teeth, thousands of stone artifacts and abundant mammalian fossils. Previous dating efforts, such as preliminary U-series dating of speleothem samples with alpha spectrometry, subsequent coupled ESR/U-Th dating of fossil teeth, and OSL dating of sediments yielded broadly consistent age results. These studies have widely placed the site within late Middle Pleistocene. In this study, we present updated systematic U-Th dating results obtained using high-precision multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS). The new data reveal that speleothem samples from bottom to top in Areas A and C yielded age ranges of 389 to 96 ka and 418 to 33 ka, respectively. In particular, Layer I in Area C was dated to 100-33 ka, indicating that human occupation of the site extended into the Late Pleistocene. A Bayesian analysis refined the age constraints for the hominin fossil-containing Layers VII-II in Area C to approximately ∼320-113 ka, suggesting an earlier dispersal to the region, potentially representing Denisovans or the recently proposed Homo juluensis. Additionally, the artifact-bearing deposits between the fourth and third flowstone layers in Area A, were dated to 389-285 ka, establishing Panxian Dadong as one of the earliest hominin settlement sites in southwestern China during the Middle Pleistocene.
Introduction
The Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau holds significant importance for understanding human evolution in East Asia (Zhu et al., 2008; Zhou et al., 2023). Its numerous karstic caves, scattered across the region, offered ideal habitats for early human settlement. Among these hominin cave sites is Panxian Dadong, the focus of this study, located in Panzhou City (formerly known as Panxian County) in western Guizhou Province, southwestern China (Fig. 1).
Panxian Dadong (PXDD; 25.6232°N, 104.7520°E; 1724m a.s.l.) is the middle cave of a large karst system comprising three stacked caverns interconnected within a 230-m-high hill(Xiong and Liu, 1997). The east-facing entrance of PXDD measures ∼55 m in width, ∼50 m in height, and is situated ∼32 m above the valley floor. The surrounding region is predominantly composed of Carboniferous and Permian limestones. Originally formed as a sinkhole by subterranean rivers, PXDD's passages were later desiccated due to neotectonic uplift. The frontal section of the cave is partially obstructed by a huge stalagmitic column. Outside the cave, a small Buddhist temple once stood, now in ruins. The present-day access to the inner cave, where excavations were conducted, is located along the northern wall (Fig. 1).
WRT the Xiaochao paper, every ancient hominin paper is great, but I don't see that the Panxain Dadong excavation breaks any new ground. Everything is generally consistent with, for example, the recent Bennett review paper. The Sumer paper is paywalled, but the open access Supplement is 168 pages and I bet covers everything in the main paper.
Arev P. Sümer, et al., "Earliest modern human genomes constrain timing of Neanderthal admixture" Nature(December 12, 2024).
"Modern humans arrived in Europe more than 45,000 years ago, overlapping at least 5,000 years with Neanderthals1–4. Limited genomic data from these early modern humans have shown that at least two genetically distinct groups inhabited Europe, represented by Zlatý kůň, Czechia3 and Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria2. Here we deepen our understanding of early modern humans by analyzing one high-coverage genome and five low-coverage genomes from ~45,000 year-old remains from Ilsenhöhle in Ranis, Germany4, and a further high-coverage genome from Zlatý kůň. We show that distant familial relationships link the Ranis and Zlatý kůň individuals and that they were part of the same small, isolated population that represents the deepest known split from the Out-of-Africa lineage. Ranis genomes harbor Neanderthal segments that originate from a single admixture event shared with all non-Africans that we date to ~45,000-49,000 years ago. This implies that ancestors of all non-Africans sequenced to-date resided in a common population at this time, and further suggests that modern human remains older than 50,000 years from outside Africa represent different non-African populations."
I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this paper. I just finished reading it and found it to be thorough, relatively unbiased, and comprehensive (for a survey). I'd love to see the same treatment for Australasia, Africa, and the Americas, but it's my understanding that none of those yet have as much data to go on as this papers shows us East Asia has.
Oldest turtle representation at Manot cave, Israel 35ka https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/chamber-in-manot-cave-may-be-the-earliest-ancient-ritual-site-in-asia
"Oldest turtle representation" Awesome. This is the most Turtle positive anthropology blog on the planet!
Papuan expansion into Wallacea same period as Austronesian expansion? (Dingoes? Dugouts?)
“The genetic origins and impacts of historical Papuan migrations into Wallacea” by Gludhug A. Purnomo, Shimona Kealy, Sue O’Connor, Antoinette Schapper, Ben Shaw, Bastien Llamas, Joao C. Teixeira, Herawati Sudoyo and Raymond Tobler, 17 December 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2412355121
@DDeden I'll check it out.
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