MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS OUT OF AFRICA INFERRED BY CHINESE TEETH

Although most researchers had assumed that humans had not emigrate far from 100.000

years ago, teeth from a cave in south China showed that they were wrong. Because of

that, this is believed to be one of the most important finds related to Asia of the last

decade.

María Martinón-Torres, a palaeoanthropologist at University College London, out of

doubt says that those teeth belong to Homo sapiens due to their small size, thin roots

and flat crowns. These characteristics are typical for anatomically modern humans and,

thanks to them; the overall shape of the teeth is can be distinguished from those of both

ancient and present-day humans.

Although recognizing the species at which they belonged to, determining their age

became a difficult task. No radioactive carbon was present on them (it died away after

50,000 years) so the team dated various calcite deposits in the cave and with the animal

remains found in the cave deduced that the human teeth were probably between 80,000

and 120,000 years old. “The teeth really look modern, but they are very old!!” Maria

Martinón-Torres said.

This new discovery has made the archaeologist request what they previously thought,

leading to some interesting questions: "What does this mean this finding? What is the

origin of people in China? And, what is their fate?"

Maybe there's not only one (migration) out of Africa, (maybe) there are several out of

Africa." What an interesting topic that is unclear for now! Don´t u think so?