科学家确定亚洲发现的牙齿化石为现代人类遗留
作者：CHENG YINGQI； 译者：RK翔
译文
在湖南省，现如今发现了47枚人类牙齿化石。
本次由中国科学家在湖南省发现的47枚人类牙齿为最早期东亚现代人的起源提供了新的证据。
本次人类牙齿化石和其他一些动物化石是在道县的福岩洞被现世的。
根据地质年代测试分析，科学家确定这些牙齿是来自智人，而智人生活在距今80000至120000年以前。
经过2011和2013年的挖掘，本批牙齿化石的发现近期刊登在《自然》科学期刊的电子版上。
本期刊执行编辑Nick Campbell说到：“中国发现的人类牙齿化石… 为我们知之甚少的领域开辟了一个新的道路。”
“相比南亚那些保存完好，年代明确的化石，此次化石的年代要古老一倍以上。”
由于缺少化石证据，人类第一次出现在地中海东部和东亚一直是一个迷。
早期在北京田园洞，湖北省黄龙洞和广西壮族自治区智人洞的人类化石将人类出现的时间缩小到11000至40000年之前，但这些化石都来自未完全进化成现代人的人类远祖。
中科院古脊椎动物和古人类研究所的刘武和《自然》刊文的第一作者说到：“本次发现具有里程碑的意义，因为我们在福岩洞发现的样本是源自进化完全的现代人，几乎和现存人类别无二致。”
“这证明了，中国南部比地中海东部和欧洲早30000至70000出现了现代人类的踪迹。”
《自然》期刊的Campbell说到：“本次发现从本质上改变了我们对亚洲现代人类起源的认知。”
“本次发现可能为现代人如何取代尼安德特人提供了隐晦的线索。”
尼安德特人和现代人类非常相近，他们生活在24000至130000年以前。
相比现代人，他们更矮小，更扁平狭长的头骨。
作为发文的合作作者，英国伦敦大学的Maria Martinon-Torres说到：“如今，我们知道现代人类在80000年之前就出现在中国南部，但尚且没有证据支持现代人在45000年之前进入欧洲，而此时尼安德特人已经灭绝了。”
英国Exeter大学考古系的Robin Dennell如此形容本次牙齿化石发现的意义：“中国南部肯定还会传来更多关于人类种族进化历史的相关消息。”
原文
Some of the 47 human teeth discovered in a cave in Hunan province.
The discovery of 47 human teeth in a cave in Hunan province by Chinese scientists has unearthed new evidence that the earliest modern humans lived in East Asia.
The teeth and a number of animal fossils were excavated from Fuyan Cave in Daoxian county.
After geological dating tests and analysis, the scientists determined that the teeth belonged to Homo sapiens, the species of modern humans that lived between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago.
The discovery of the teeth, made between 2011 and 2013, has just been reported in the online version of the scientific journal Nature.
Nick Campbell, the journal's executive editor, said, "The human teeth from China ... open up a new window on an area we had little information on before.
"These fossils ... are approximately double or more the age of any previous well dated, well preserved human fossils from southern Asia."
The first appearance of humans in the eastern Mediterranean and East Asia has remained a mystery due to lack of fossil evidence.
Human fossils found earlier in Beijing's Tianyuan Cave, Huanglong Cave in Hubei province and Zhiren Cave in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region narrowed this down to between 11,000 and 40,000 years ago, but none of these species evolved fully into modern humans.
Liu Wu from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and lead author of the paper in Nature, said, "This is a milestone discovery because the species we found in the Fuyuan Cave is from well developed modern humans, almost identical to living humans.
"This means that we were present in southern China 30,000 to 70,000 years earlier than in the eastern Mediterranean and Europe."
Campbell, from Nature, said, "The findings really do substantially change our understanding of how modern humans established themselves in Asia.
"The findings may have some intriguing implications for the ever-evolving story of how modern humans replaced Neanderthals."
Neanderthals were closely related to modern humans and lived between 24,000 and 130,000 years ago.
They were smaller than modern humans and had low, flat elongated skulls.
Maria Martinon-Torres from University College London, a co-author of the paper, said, "Now we know that modern humans were present in southern China as early as 80,000 years ago, but there is no evidence that our species entered Europe before 45,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were already extinct."
Robin Dennell from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said of the teeth discovery, "More revelations about our species' history can surely be expected from southern China."
来源：oschina
链接：https://my.oschina.net/u/219279/blog/687337