Red Deer Cave People as Archaic Humans in Southwest China

Summary: Red Deer Cave People express evolutionary status as modern humans preserving archaic features from interbreeding or as survivalist archaic species.

Red Deer Cave man depicted by Peter Schouten (studioschouten@iprimus.com.au): UNSW News‏ @UNSWnews via Twitter Dec. 17, 2015

Red Deer Cave people remains in southwest China are answering as many questions as bone can without extractible deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), according to an article published online Dec. 17, 2015, in PLOS ONE.

The article’s six co-authors base their findings upon animal and human bones discovered in 1989 in Maludong Red Deer Cave in Yunnan Province in southwest China. The six scientists in Australia and China consider the age of one bone, a femur (thigh bone), and the implication for research previously published in 2012. DNA degrades in the cave-sheltered cooking fires and in the humid tropical heat of prehistoric China even though radiocarbon-dating of charcoal and of sediment is possible.

Radiocarbon estimates the age at 14,000 years.

The 2012 study focuses upon cranial and jaw bones and teeth retrieved in 1979 from Laomaocao (Longin) Cave in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south-central China.

Darren Curnoe, Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, and Ji Xueping, professor at Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, give radiocarbon-based ages. Radiocarbon-dating hints at aging Longin Cave's artifacts and bones to 14,000 to 10,500 years ago, 26,000 to 29,500 years after the extinctions of Denisovans and Neanderthals. The modern human proliferation of Homo sapiens implies previous extinctions of such archaic species as Africa's Homo erectus and Homo habilis, Eurasia's Neanderthals, and Siberia's Denisovans.

Professor Curnoe joins together "different kinds of humans" in reconstructing southwest China's prehistory.

Even today, the Tibetan Plateau keeps Asia's populations socio-economically diverse and geo-historically isolated, in ways repetitive of "pre-modern groups surviving very late," according to Professor Ji.

The backward-facing attachment for the hip's primary flexor muscle lets Professor Curnoe suspect knock-kneed gaits for the 50-kilogram (110.23-pound) cave-dweller: "These features suggest it walked differently." The two lead scientists mention the proximity of young Homo sapiens remains and the telltale marrow and meat extraction marks on butchered, cannibalized, smoked human bones. They note Homo sapiens mating with Red Deer Cave People before consigning cannibalized bones to ochre-painted rituals and recycling cannibalized hybrid children's bones into drinking vessels.

Maludong and Laomaocao offer before-and-after interactions between Red Deer Cave-dwellers and modern humans.

Post-Ice Age occurrences and ochre-painted, ritualized remains prompt Professors Curnoe's and Ji's pondering genetic drift, geographical isolation and natural selection primitivizing Red Deer Cave People physiques.

According to Robin Dennell of the University of Oxford in England, Red Deer Cave People qualify as archaic hybrids interbred by Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, resists interpretation of Red Deer Cave People as other than natural variations within the established human species. Michael Petraglia of Oxford University in England states that "If true, this would be rather spectacular and it would make the find of truly global importance."

It takes DNA to call Red Deer Cave People archaic, hybrid or modern.

Red Deer Cave hominin femur ~ A=anterior view. B=CT-scan slices. C=posterior view. D=CT-scan slice mid-coronal plane, grayscale (left) and color density map (right). E=superior view (anterior at left, lateral at top). F=CT-scan transverse slices at approximate mid-neck level, grayscale (left) and color density map (right). G=medial view. H=CT-scan slice in approximate mid-plane, grayscale (left) and color density map (right). P=plaster added in 1989 during restoration: Darren Curnoe et al., CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Red Deer Cave man depicted by Peter Schouten (studioschouten@iprimus.com.au): "‘Red Deer Cave’ people bone points to mysterious species of pre-modern human.": UNSW News‏ @UNSWnews via Twitter Dec. 17, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/UNSWnews/status/677654902848528385

femur: Darren Curnoe et al., CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0143332

For further information:

The Conversation @ConversationEDU. 17 December 2015. "A new bone discovery of the 'Red Deer Cave people' suggests a mysterious species of human." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU/status/677590846477221890

Curnoe, Darren. 18 December 2015. “Bone Suggests ‘Red Deer Cave People’ a Mysterious Species of Human.” Phys.Org > Other Sciences > Archaeology & Fossils.
Available @ http://phys.org/news/2015-12-bone-red-deer-cave-people.html

Curnoe, Darren; Xueping Ji; Wu Liu; Zhende Bao; Paul S.C. Taçon; and Liang Ren. 17 December 2015. "A Hominin Femur with Archaic Affinities from the Late Pleistocene of Southwest China." PLOS ONE. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143332
Available @ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0143332

Curnoe, Darren; Xueping Ji; Paul S. C. Taçon; Ge Yaozheng. 23 July 2015. “Possible Signatures of Hominin Hybridization from the Early Holocene of Southwest China.” Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 12408 (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep12408
Available @ http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12408

Hall, Natalia. 18 December 2015. “’Red Deer Cave People’ Bone Shows Link with an Archaic Human Species.” Northern Californian > Science.
Available @ http://northerncalifornian.com/content/55394-‘red-deer-cave-people’-bone-shows-link-archaic-human-species

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 December 2015. "Do Red Deer Cave People Survive With Yeti Neanderthals in Siberia?" Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/12/do-red-deer-cave-people-survive-with_18.html

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“’Red Deer Cave People’ Bone Points to Mysterious Species of Pre-Modern Human.” Phys.Org > Other Sciences > Archaeology & Fossils > Dec. 17, 2015.
Available @ http://phys.org/news/2015-12-red-deer-cave-people-bone.html

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