EARLY HOMO AND ASSOCIATED ARTIFACTS FROM ASIA

The site of Longgupo Cave was discovered in 1984 and excavated in 1985 -1988 by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropolog y (Beijing) and the Chongqing National Museum (Sichuan Province). Impo rtant finds include very archaic hominid dental fragments, Gigantopith ecus teeth and primitive stone tools. Palaeomagnetic analysis and the presence of Ailuropoda microta (pygmy giant panda) suggested that the hominid-bearing levels dated to the earliest Pleistocene(1). In 1992, joint Chinese-American-Canadian geochronological research corroborated the age using electron spin resonance (ESR) analysis. We report here that the hominid dentition and stone tools from Longgupo Cave are comp arable in age and morphology with early representives of the genus Hom o (H. habilis and H. ergaster) and the Oldowan technology in East Afri ca. The Longgupo dentition is demonstrably more primitive than that se en in Asian Homo erectus. Longgupo's diverse and well preserved Plio-P leistocene fauna of 116 species provide a sensitive contextual base fo r interpreting the early arrival of the genus Homo in Asia.