Chinese Relics | The Upper Incisor Fossils of Yuanmou Man
Over-million-year history of human life on the Chinese land
Zheng Qian, Zhou Yuzhou
Prologue
From grand relics of dynasties past to everyday objects captured in pottery and scrolls, each artifact unlocks a chapter of China's rich history. Join us on a journey through these enduring legacies, gaining insight into the Chinese nation!
What is it？
Name: The Upper Incisors Fossils of Yuanmou Man
Age: about 1.7 million years old
Dimensions: 2 cm in length, 1.13 cm in width (Left); 2.1 cm in length, 1.14 cm in width (Right)
Excavation Site: Upper Nabeng Village, Yuanmou County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province
Housed in: The Geological Museum of China
This discovery of The Upper Incisor Fossils of Yuanmou Man in Yunnan Province pushed back the timeline of human history in China by over a million years.
What's the story？
In 1965, Qian Fang, Pu Yuqing and other scholars carried out a geological survey in Upper Nabeng Village, Yuanmou County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Guided by an elderly cattle herder, they ventured about one kilometer west of the village into a mountain gully. They discovered fossils of the Yunnan Pony beneath an earth mound, as well as two human upper incisor fossils. In the spring of 1976, the absolute geochronology age of the two teeth fossils was determined to be 1.7 million years, with a margin of error of ± 100,000 years, a finding that rocked both Chinese and international academia.
The discovery site in Yuanmou County lent its name to the fossils' owner, now known as "Yuanmou Man." This discovery pushed back the timeline of human history in China by over a million years, serving as tangible evidence of the continuous development of ancient humans in the region.
The two incisor fossils, presenting a pale gray-white hue and highly petrified, belonged to the same adult individual. A distinctive feature of the teeth is the concave surface on the lingual side of the crown, with the edges rolled into ridges, resembling the shape of a shovel — hence the typical shovel-shaped incisors.
More astonishing than their ancient age is the shovel-shaped characteristic of the incisors, as the majority of Chinese people today possess this trait. For instance, among the Han Chinese population, 89.6% of males and 95.2% of females have shovel-shaped incisors; among the Mongolian Chinese population, the trait is present in 91.5% of both males and females. In both ancient and modern East Asian populations, shovel-shaped incisors are prevalent. On the contrary, in other races of the world, the proportion of those with shovel-shaped incisors is zero, or no more than 10%.
The Asian race is broadly referred to as "Mongoloid," characterized by yellow skin, a lower nasal bridge, higher cheekbones, shovel-shaped incisors and developed upper eyelid folds. With the ongoing discovery of ancient human fossils in China, shovel-shaped incisors have emerged as a significant physical feature of ancient Chinese physiology, with an increasing number of traits also found in modern Mongoloid populations.
This indicates incontestably that ancient ancestors not only shared a genetic connection with modern Mongoloid populations but also exhibited a pattern of continuous development. On this basis, paleoanthropologists have put forward the theory of continuous evolution of ancient humans in China.
The views don't necessarily reflect those of DeepChina.
Source: Becoming the Chinese Nation: The historical memories of multi-ethnic Chinese Nation in 100 cultural relics
Editor/ Liu Xian
Translator/ Chi Jianfeng
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