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Paleosol Stable Isotope Evidence for Early Hominid Occupation of East Asian Temperate Environments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Hong Wang ,
Stanley H. Ambrose ,
Chao-Li Jack Liu  and
Leon R. Follmer
Hong Wang
Affiliation:
Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois, 61820
Stanley H. Ambrose
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, 61801
Chao-Li Jack Liu
Affiliation:
Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois, 61820
Leon R. Follmer
Affiliation:
Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois, 61820
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Abstract

Hominids left Africa and occupied mainland Asia by 1.8 myr ago. About 1.15 myr ago Homo erectus and an associatedStegodon–Ailuropoda fauna migrated from subtropical China across the Qinling Mountains into the temperate Loess Plateau. This migration may be an evolutionary milestone in human adaptability because it may represent the first occupation of a nontropical environment. Loess–paleosol stable isotope ratios from the last interglacial–glacial cycle provide comparative data for reconstructing the hominid paleoenvironments. The climate during Gongwangling hominid occupation about 1.15 myr ago was influenced by both Siberian–Mongolian winter and Indian summer monsoon systems characterized as a cold/cool, dry winter and warm/mild, semihumid summer and fall. The Gongwangling hominids preyed mainly on warm-climate-adapted animals such asStegodon–Ailuropoda fauna, suggesting a warm season occupation. The stable isotope ratios also indicate that the Chenjiawo hominids occupied an environment similar to that of the Gongwangling about 650,000 yr ago. The associated fauna, with a mixture of forest and steppe, warm- and cold/cool-climate-adapted animal assemblage's, suggests a permanent occupation by this time. Thus, the reliable earliest and permanent occupation of temperate environments may have occurred 150,000 yr earlier in eastern Asia rather than in Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 228 - 238
Copyright
University of Washington

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