'Peking Man' older than thought

BBC ^ | 11 Mar 2009 | Paul Rincon

[BGHater]

Iconic ancient human fossils from China are 200,000 years older than had previously been thought, a study shows.

The new dating analysis suggests the "Peking Man" fossils, unearthed in the caves of Zhoukoudian are some 750,000 years old.

The discovery should help define a more accurate timeline for early humans arriving in North-East Asia.

A US-Chinese team of researchers has published its findings in the prestigious journal Nature.

The cave system of Zhoukoudian, near Beijing, is one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the world.

Between 1921 and 1966, archaeologists working at the site unearthed tens of thousands of stone tools and hundreds of fragmentary remains from about 40 early humans.

Palaeontologists later assigned these members of the human lineage to the species Homo erectus.

The pre-war Peking Man fossils vanished in 1941 whilst being transported to the US for safekeeping. Luckily, the palaeontologist Franz Weidenreich had made casts for researchers to study.

Experts have tried various methods over the years to determine the age of the remains. But they have been hampered by the lack of suitable techniques for dating cave deposits such as those at Zhoukoudian.

Open habitats

Now, Guanjun Shen, from Nanjing Normal University in China, and colleagues have applied a relatively new method to the problem.

This method is based on the radioactive decay of unstable forms, or isotopes, of the elements aluminium and beryllium in quartz grains. This enabled them to get a more precise age for the fossils.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks BGHater and Pharmboy. PB, all living humans are descended from a variety of different precursors, but this is denied by Multiregionalism Deniers. ;') I regard the Replacement model as just another racial superiority/inferiority lunacy. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Oztrich Boy]

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[Alter Kaker]

Moderate Creationists don't. But Jack Chick, Malcolm Bowden, Duane Gish (and their original source, Patrick O'Connell) have.

What's a moderate creationist? Wrong is wrong. It's like being a moderate flat-earther.