In May 1965, Qian Fang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and others found two fossils of suspected human teeth in the Yuanmou Basin in southwest China, and the crowns of these two human tooth fossils were relatively well preserved, the degree of petrification was relatively dark, and the color was Cheng gray and white, which belonged to the part of the same adult male.
Fossil teeth of Yuanmou people (hand-painted)
After the research of scientists, it was found that these two teeth are relatively thick and flat, and the bite surface of the teeth has a relatively large degree of wear, such as the shape of the knife edge, and the teeth are thick and large, just like the teeth of primitive humans, with obvious characteristics of primitive properties. The incisors of the Yuanmou and Pekingese are the most similar, should be a separate subspecies of Homo erectus, and are more primitive, representing the transition from Australopithecus to Homo erectus.
In 1984, a team from the Beijing Museum of Natural History found another section of human tibia in Guojiabao, about 250 meters away from the origin of the Yuanmou human fossil, and believed that it belonged to the Yuanmou people. The tibia is obviously partial tibia, the anterior edge of the backbone is obviously blunt, there is a shallow interosseous ridge, and the bone bibi of the backbone is thicker and the medulla cavity is smaller. In summary, the tibia belt of the Yuanmou people has many characteristics of capable people, which are different from modern people.
A stone tool model of the Yuanmou people, collected in the Shanghai Museum of Natural History
Yuanmouren scraper
From 1973 to 1975, a total of seven stone tools were excavated in the formation where the fossils of Yuanmou were found, of which four scrapers were the most intact and three stone tools were made of quartzite, which were two-edged, compound-edged and end-edged scrapers. In addition, the ten stone tools collected at the same site are also regarded as stone tools of the Yuanmou people, and three of them are in better condition, and it is speculated that they were washed out of the surface by rainwater, which were stone chips, stone cores, and pointed tools. Although it is difficult to infer the stone tool processing technology of the Yuanmou people from these stone tools alone. However, the following can be known: the Yuanmou people will use the pounding method to manufacture and repair stone tools, and will make scrapers and sharpeners, and the size of the tools is not large.
Yuanmouren pointed device
Many charcoal chips have also been found in the formations where fossils of Yuanmou were found, often associated with mammalian fossils. Several black bones were also found on the same level, which experts identified as possibly burned. These may be traces of overuse by the Yuanmou people.
After years of excavation, a total of 35 stone artifacts have been found, of which 21 specimens are better.
In 2005, based on the results of various dating methods, Qian Fang synthesized fossil research and stratigraphic analysis, and concluded that the era of Yuan mouren was early Pleistocene, 1.7 million years ago. After the study of the stone tools found, it is shown that the Yuanmou people lived in the early Paleolithic period.
If the age of the Yuanmou people is located as 1.7 million years ago, then the Yuanmou people are the earliest known ancient humans in China. Since this was the original chronological positioning of the Yuanmou people, some textbooks, popular reading materials and encyclopedias hold this view.
Since the discovery of forest ape tooth fossils in 1956, ancient ape fossils have been found in Lufeng, Yuanmou and Baoshan in Yunnan. The evolutionary taxonomic status of these apes and their interrelationship with each other have always been of concern to the academic community. The Yuanmou ancient ape tooth measurement data was compared with the published Lufeng and Kai ancient ape tooth measurements, trying to provide some evidence for the size of the teeth to solve this problem. From the distribution of the tooth area data of Yuanmou and Lufeng and Kaiyuan apes, the tooth sizes of the ancient apes found in these three locations in Yunnan are very close, and the teeth of the yuanmou ancient apes and the ancient apes are closer to each other in terms of tooth data. The tooth size of Lufeng ancient ape is slightly larger than that of Yuanmou ancient ape and Kai ancient ape.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that this study reveals the distribution of the tooth size of the Yuanmou ancient ape, and also compares some specific characteristics with the Lufeng ancient ape, the Ancient Ape and the living great ape found in Yunnan.
In 1982, the State Council of China announced the Yuanmou Ape Man Site as the second batch of national key cultural relics protection units, with a protected area of about 768.15 mu.
At present, there is a Yuanmou ren exhibition hall to preserve the relevant cultural relics and sites of yuanmou people, located in Longchuan Street, Yuanmou County, covering an area of 6 acres, construction began in 1987, opened on September 25, 1989, the collection of cultural relics more than 1,000 pieces. The exhibition hall is divided into three parts: "Human Origin", "Yuanmou Ancient Ape" and "Yuanmou Prehistoric Culture", in addition to displaying the knowledge of cultural relics related to the Yuanmou people, there are also some other ancient ape ancient human relics found in Yunnan. The exhibition hall is mainly guided by dialectical materialism and historical materialism, and combines exhibits to illustrate "the evolution of human beings from apes" and "the process of human social development". In 2009, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China announced the Yuanmouren Exhibition Hall as a national third-level museum.
Site
On the whole, the Yuanmou people are about 1.7 million years away from this year, and they belong to the paleoanthroptery of the early Paleolithic age, which is obtained by measuring the fossil strata and the main body of the fauna. Later, through the re-determination of paleomagnetic specimens, the dating of the Yuanmou people has been revised to 500,000-600,000 years ago, that is, the middle Pleistocene. It may live in subtropical-forest environments.
Whether the Yuanmou people belong to Homo erectus and the contemporary East Asians belong to Homo sapiens, whether there is a kinship between the two is still inconclusive.
The discovery of "Yuanmouren" has pushed forward the history of Chinese for more than 1 million years, indicating that Yunnan in the Yangtze River Basin is the key and core area of human origin and development, effectively challenging the theory of an african-centrism of human origin, and providing strong scientific Chinese support for the polycentrism of human origin and development.