Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [406]
Interestingly, Han Defen and Xu Chunhua reported Hyaena brevirostris sinensis fossils at Changyang (Han and Xu 1985, p. 286). Aigner (1981, pp. 289, 322) said this species is not found more recently than the Holstein interglacial, which is equivalent to the Taku-Lushan interglacial of the Chinese middle Middle Pleistocene (Table 9.2, p. 566). This should have given Aigner reason to refer Changyang Homo sapiens to the Taku-Lushan (Holstein) interglacial.
9.2.6 Liujiang
In 1958, workers found human fossils in the Liujiang cave in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of South China. These included a skull, vertebrae, ribs, pelvic bones, and a right femur. Han and Xu (1985, p. 286) said the Liujiang fossils are from Homo sapiens sapiens. Aigner (1981, p. 63) stated: “Many measurements taken fall within the range for living Mongoloids but several are clearly in the range for ‘Australoids.’. . . Wu concludes that the remains belong to an early form of (modern) H. sapiens and to a primitive Mongoloid.”
But the anatomically modern remains were found along with a typical StegodonAiluropoda fauna, giving a date range for the site of the entire Middle Pleistocene. The assemblage included Hystrix (porcupine), Ursus (bear), and Sus (hog). Since the species were not identifiable, these forms are not useful for precise dating (Han and Xu 1985, p. 286). Ailuropoda melanoleuca fovealis (panda) survives today and Rhinoceros sinensis lived until recently in China. But Stegodon orientalis (elephant) and Megatapirus augustus (giant tapir) probably did not survive past the Middle Pleistocene (Aigner 1981, pp. 289, 325), suggesting that the fossil-bearing cave deposits are at least that old. This completes the main faunal list at Liujiang, although Jia (1980, p. 46) mentions other unnamed species of cattle and deer.
“The [human] skull was found near the cave mouth no more than four meters [about 13 feet] from the find spot of the panda remains,” said Jia (1980, p. 46). “The deposits there consisted of limestone, sand, and earth. The greybrown deposits were very loose and moist in marked contrast to mammalianfossil-bearing deposits found elsewhere in Guangxi, which are hard and yellowish. The types were obviously of different dating.”
It seems Jia (1980, p. 47) assigned a recent date of about 40,000 years to the Liujiang Homo sapiens fossils simply because the stratum where they were found was of a different color and consistency than that found in other caves in the same province. This is a weak argument, considering that the faunal remains are typical of the Middle Pleistocene. One can easily imagine circumstances that might account for different sorts of cave deposits in different locations.
A more frank explanation of the recent dating is suggested by Chang (1962, p. 753): “Woo Ju-kang, who reported the finding of Liu-chiang Man, assumes that the fossil human skull together with that of Ailuropoda is later than Middle Pleistocene. As the human skull is definitely fossilized and of Homosapiens type, it can be assumed that it is of late Pleistocene age.” Wu Xinzhi and Zhang Zhenbiao stated: “although in 1958 most of the representatives of the fauna were thought to have been deposited during the Middle Pleistocene, Wu Rukang believes the hominid remains postdate this epoch” (Wu and Zhang 1985, p. 109). These statements imply that that the remains of the human and panda were deposited in the cave after the other mammalian fossils. One suspects, however, that if the hominid remains had been of the Homo erectus type, scientists would not have felt compelled to interpret the evidence in such a fashion.
Aigner (1981, p. 64) provides an example of some very finely tuned morphological dating: “Based on the descriptions of relative primitiveness of the