Continuning with this series of posts on new findings in Asia, a paper published on February 18, 2026 (Hua Tu et al. (2026). The oldest in situ Homo erectus crania in eastern Asia: The Yunxian site dates to ~1.77 Ma. Sci. Adv. 12, eady2270. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.ady2270) reports that three skulls belonging to Homo erectus recovered from Yunxian, China were dated to an age of 1.77 million years. This is roughly 600,000 years older than previous estimates.
This new dating is very relevant because it shows a rapid expansion of these hominids across Asia: The oldest remains of erectus are found in Georgia (the Dmanisi site) and are 1.78 to 1.85 Ma. The remains from Indonesia are younger, for instance those from Sanigran are 1.5 to 1.66 Ma., and the age assigned to Chinese remains is close to 1.3 Ma.
Interestingly, this paper mentions two sites in China older than 2.1 million years: "Further, the earliest archaeological traces, as represented by Xihoudu [~2.4 Ma;] and Shangchen [~2.1 Ma]." This could imply a very early out of Africa migration of austraolpithecines perhaps! (see my post on erectus and australopiths in Dmanisi, Georgia).
Yunxian site is on the Han River, in Central China. The paper concludes that:
"The age for Yunxian also indicates that H. erectus at ~1.77 Ma was much more widespread than just Dmanisi in Georgia, although the latter site, at the top of the Olduvai subchron (1.78 to 1.85 Ma), should be slightly older. This supports a rapid dispersal model of H. erectus through Asia beginning after 2 Ma. As the dates for these hominin sites continue to be pushed back in time, it would suggest that the chronological gap between the earliest archaeology at sites like Xihoudu [~2.43 Ma] and Shangchen [~2.1 Ma] and hominin paleontology in China is quickly narrowing. Questions remain, however, as to when and where H. erectus initially appeared and could they have been among the earliest occupants at some of these sites in China and elsewhere that now date to the early Early Pleistocene. If not, then should we be considering alternative hominins as the possible earliest occupants of Asia, particularly because the earliest sites in Asia now predate the traditionally accepted appearance of Homo ergaster/H. erectus (~1.9 Ma). The dates for Yunxian presented here represent a step forward to addressing such questions."
An earlier presence of Homo or australopithecines in East Asia opens the door to a continued migration into America 1.7 to 2.1 million years ago.
The two older sites ~2 Ma
The two sites mentioned further up, over two million years old are linked to the following sources:
G. J. Shen, Y. R. Wang, H. Tu, H. W. Tong, Z. K. Wu, K. Kuman, D. Fink, D. E. Granger, Isochron 26Al/10Be burial dating of Xihoudu: Evidence for the earliest human settlement in northern China. Anthropologie 124, 102790 (2020).
Z. Zhu, R. Dennell, W. Huang, Y. Wu, S. Qiu, S. Yang, Z. Rao, Y. Hou, J. Xie, J. Han, T. Ouyang, Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago. Nature 559, 608–612 (2018).
I will look into them in a future post, and also, look int the possible origin of the homo group in Asia, instead of Africa.
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