The Early Modern Human from Tianyuan Cave, China

"Not only does this detailed monograph on Tianyuan stand as an excellent example of high-quality description and analysis of important human fossils, it also provides, for the first time, reliably dated evidence on the initial appearance of early modern people on the East Asian mainland. Thus, this work will have a significant impact on our understanding of later human evolution in Asia for many years to come, regardless of individual views on evidence for continuity between early modern and archaic Asians." ---Fred Smith, professor of anthropology and biologicalsciences chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University

The authors have been among the key contributors to the redefinition of the terms of the debate . . . and here they do it again. This book is a paleoanthropological landmark and destined to be for many years a key source of information to all those involved in the investigation of how humans became what they are today." ---Joao Zilhao, professor of paleolithic archaeology, University of Bristol ". . . the authors provide a detailed description of the remains, state of preservation, anatomy, body proportions, and pathologies . . . provides a balanced coverage of both who was Tianyuan (definitely a modern human), but also a little bit of how he or she lived . meticulous descriptions and analyses." ---Brigitte M. Holt, assistant professor of anthropology, University of Massachusetts

The human population and behavioral processes that led to the emergence and spread of anatomically modern humans in the Late Pleistocene is one of the major ongoing topics in anthropology. Through detailed description and interpretation of the most complete early modern human skeleton from eastern Asia, this book provides new insights into these processes in one of the major regions of the Old World. Directly or indirectly, it addresses long-term questions relating to the ancestry of modern humans in eastern Asia, the nature of the changes in human behavior with the emergence of modern human biology, and the levels of stress and survival of these human populations. More broadly, it raises questions about the evolutionary roots of recent human diversity.

The understanding of these issues can be properly evaluated only through the detailed analysis of human remains and artifacts from the time of modern human emergence. The human skeleton from Tianyuandong, China, discovered in 2001, is one of a small group of early modern human fossils from eastern Eurasia that has the potential to shed light on at least some of these questions. This book is therefore a detailed, paleontological and paleobio-logical presentation of this skeleton, its context, and its implications. By providing basic information for this important human fossil, by offering inferences concerning the population processes involved in modern human emergence in eastern Eurasia, and by raising questions concerning the adaptations of these early modern human hunter-gatherers, The Early Modern Human from Tianyuan Cave, China will take its place as a core contribution to the study of modern human emergence.

Hong Shang is an associate professor and associate researcher in the Department of Paleoanthropology, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, where she also received her PhD
Erik trinkaus, a prominent paleoanthro-pologist and expert on Neandertal and early modern human biology, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania