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9.2.10 Stone Tools and Hominid Teeth at Yuanmou (Early Early Pleistocene)

We conclude our review of fossil hominid discoveries in China with some cases of sites regarded as Early Pleistocene. At Yuanmou, in Yunnan province, southwest China, geologists found two hominid teeth (incisors). According to Chinese scientists, these were more primitive than those of Beijing man, having a more complicated lingual surface (the lingual surface is that facing the tongue). The teeth are believed to have belonged to a very primitive Homo erectus, a precursor of Beijing man, descended from Australopithecus (Jia 1980, pp. 6–7).

Stone tools—three scrapers, a stone core, a flake, and a point of quartz or quartzite—were later found at Yuanmou. Published drawings (Zhang, S. 1985, p. 141) show the Yuanmou tools to be much like the European eoliths and the Oldowan industry of East Africa. Layers of cinders, containing mammalian fossils, were also found with the tools and hominid incisors. According to Jia (1980, p. 8), “The cinders were in heaps at some spots while sparse and scattered elsewhere.” The strata yielding the incisors gave a probable paleomagnetic date of

1.7 million years within a range of 1.6–1.8 million years (Jia 1980, p. 9).

There are problems with this Early Pleistocene age for Yuanmou Homo erectus. Homo erectus is thought to have evolved from Homo habilis in Africa about 1.5 million years ago, and then migrated elsewhere about 1.0 million years ago. Homo habilis is not thought to have left Africa. Implicit in Jia’s age estimate for the Yuanmou hominid is a separate origin for Homo erectus in China. Jia seems to require the presence in China about 2.0 million years ago of Australopithecus or Homo habilis, something forbidden by current theory.

In this regard, Lewis R. Binford and Nancy M. Stone (1986, p. 15) stated: “It should be noted that many Chinese scholars are still wedded to the idea that man evolved in Asia. This view contributes to the willingness of many to uncritically accept very early dates for Chinese sites and to explore the possibility of stone tools being found in Pliocene deposits.” One could also say that because Western scholars are wedded to the idea that humans evolved in Africa they uncritically reject very early dates for hominid fossils and artifacts around the world.

As previously mentioned, one need not suppose that either Africa or Asia was a center of evolution. There is, as shown in preceding chapters, voluminous evidence, much found by professional scientists, suggesting that humans of the modern type have lived on various continents, including South America, for tens of millions of years. And, during this same period, there is also evidence for various apelike creatures, some resembling humans more than others.

A question encountered in our discussions of anomalous cultural remains (Chapters 2–5) once more arises: What justification does one have for attributing the stone tools and signs of fire at Yuanmou to primitive Homo erectus?

The tools and signs of fire were not found close to the Homo erectus teeth (Jia 1985, p. 140). Two of the three tools lay 1.5 meters (5 feet) below the level of the teeth, and the third 1 meter (3 feet) above. The closest tool was 5 meters (about 16.4 feet) from the teeth. The others were up to 20 meters (65.6 feet) away.

Furthermore, as seen in this chapter, there is much evidence that Homo sapiens may have existed in China far earlier than is presently admitted. And we have already examined evidence from other parts of the world demonstrating the presence of Homo sapiens in the Early Pleistocene and earlier.

Aigner, representing mainline anthropological thought, reacted predictably to Jia Lanpo’s suggested early dating for the Yuanmou hominid. She stated: “The hominid and faunal remains, as well as contemporaneous artifacts [occur] in level 25 at the base of the fourth stratigraphic unit, equivalent to earliest Middle Pleistocene times. A paleomagnetic age of 1.7 million years would place the strata and H. erectus yuanmoensis equivalent