Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Considerable attention has been paid to dating the earliest appearance of hominins outside Africa. The earliest skeletal and artefactual evidence for the genus Homo in Asia currently comes from Dmanisi, Georgia, and is dated to approximately 1.77-1.85 million years ago (Ma)(1). Two incisors that may belong to Homo erectus come from Yuanmou, south China, and are dated to 1.7 Ma(2); the next-oldest evidence is an H. erectus cranium from Lantian (Gongwangling)-which has recently been dated to 1.63 Ma(3) and the earliest hominin fossils from the Sangiran dome in Java, which are dated to about 1.5-1.6 Ma(4). Artefacts from Majuangou III5 and Shangshazui(6) in the Nihewan basin, north China, have also been dated to 1.6-1.7 Ma. Here we report an Early Pleistocene and largely continuous artefact sequence from Shangchen, which is a newly discovered Palaeolithic locality of the southern Chinese Loess Plateau, near Gongwangling in Lantian county. The site contains 17 artefact layers that extend from palaeosol S15-dated to approximately 1.26 Ma-to loess L28, which we date to about 2.12 Ma. This discovery implies that hominins left Africa earlier than indicated by the evidence from Dmanisi

New data on the Geology and Geochronology of the Lower Palaeolithic Site Bizat Ruhama in the Southern Levant

The Bizat Ruhama site in the Northern Negev, Israel, has been first excavated in 1996. But geological observation of this site section began in 1995. The results obtained by geological and geophysical methods are discussed in this paper. New paleoma- gnetic data permit to date the cultural layer at Bizat Ruhama at the Matuyama epoch (0,85-0,99 My). Artifacts that belong to the Matuyama epoch differ from the others by their small sizes.Le site de Bizat Ruhama au Nord du Negev, Israel, a été fouillé pour la première fois en 1996, des observations géologiques ayant commencé en 1995. Les résultats obtenus par ces observations et par des méthodes géophysiques sont discutés ici. De nouvelles données paléomagnétiques permettent de dater la couche anthropique mise au jour à Bizat Ruhama de la période Matuyama (0,85-0,99 millions d'années). Les pièces archéologiques trouvées dans les couches répondant à la période Matuyama diffèrent par leurs très petites dimensions des artefacts trouvés dans les autres couches.Laukhin Stanislav A., Ronen A., Pospelova Genrietta Antoninovna, Sharonova Zinaida V., Ranov Vadim Aleksandrovich, Burdukiewicz Jan Michal, Volgina Valerya A., Tsatskin Alexander. New data on the Geology and Geochronology of the Lower Palaeolithic Site Bizat Ruhama in the Southern Levant. In: Paléorient, 2001, vol. 27, n°1. pp. 69-80