Human fossils in China are a new people

MENGZI, China, March 14 (UPI) -- Human fossils in caves in southwestern China reveal a previously unknown Stone Age people and a glimpse at a recent stage of human evolution, scientists say.

A team of Chinese and Australian researchers said the fossils show a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features in the Stone Age people, the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia.

The remains of at least three individuals were found by Chinese archaeologists at Maludong, or Red Deer Cave, near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan province during 1989. They remained unstudied until research began in 2008 involving scientists from six Chinese and five Australian institutions, the University of New South Wales reported Wednesday.

The researchers have been hesitant to classify the fossils because of their unusual combination of features.

"These new fossils might be of a previously unknown species, one that survived until the very end of the Ice Age around 11,000 years ago," Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales said.

"Alternatively, they might represent a very early and previously unknown migration of modern humans out of Africa, a population who may not have contributed genetically to living people."

Until now, no fossils younger than 100,000 years old have been found in mainland East Asia resembling any species other than our own Homo sapiens, suggesting the region had been empty of our evolutionary cousins when the first modern humans appeared.

The new discovery suggests this might not have been the case after all and throws the spotlight once more on Asia, researchers said.

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story -- the Asian chapter -- and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," Curnoe said.