Chinese challenge to 'out of Africa' theory 00:01 03 November 2009 by Phil McKenna The discovery of an early human fossil in southern China may challenge the commonly held idea that modern humans originated out of Africa. Jin Changzhu and colleagues of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing, announced to Chinese media last week that they have uncovered a 110,000-year-old putative Homo sapiens jawbone from a cave in southern China's Guangxi province.