Category Archives: CHINA

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

2,000-Year-Old Unique Composite Fish Scaled Armor Found in Ancient Tomb

Chinese researchers have recently found fish-scaled armor in the tomb of Liu He, Marquis of Haihun from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), in Nanchang, the capital of eastern China’s Jiangxi province.

According to the Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, this is the first instance of composite armor—made from a combination of materials like lacquered iron, copper, and leather—discovered during the archaeological excavation of the Han Dynasty sites. It demonstrates the highest level of armor-making practices of that period.

The armor’s smallest piece is 1 centimeter wide and about 0.2 centimeters thick.

Yang Jun, head of the excavation team, told Xinhua that these armor pieces were found in the tomb of Liu He in the west part of the outer coffin, where weaponry was installed.

After more than two years of meticulous work, researchers have restored approximately 6,000 armor plates from among those unearthed in the weapons section of the tomb, alongside knives and swords, according to Yang Jun.

“The smallest plate is just 1 cm wide and about 0.2 cm thick, making it the smallest scale armor plate unearthed from Han Dynasty sites,” said Bai Rongjin, an expert in armor protection and research from the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social  Sciences.

The armor pieces unearthed from the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun.

According to Bai, scale armor is mostly found in Han Dynasty tombs and is usually made with a single material, with each plate measuring 4 to 10 cm in width.

The smaller the armor plates, the more plates are required to assemble the armor — reflecting the increasing complexity of its production process.

The process of removing roughly 6,000 pieces of armor from the boxes took archaeologists two years.

According to the cultural conservation team’s initial restoration research, the armor was made from materials that were lacquered in leather, bronze, and iron.

The pieces of fish-scaled armor were discovered with swords, according to Yang, at the Marquis of Haihun’s tomb. It has been assumed that the items were packaged in lacquer boxes based on the presence of patent leather traces on the premises. However, when the tomb was unearthed, it was discovered that the lacquer boxes had rotted, and the armor and swords appeared piled up.

“The tomb is known to have undergone earthquakes and the rising groundwater level caused by the intrusion of the Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake. The burial environment has made the armor pieces thin and fragile,” said Yang, in a statement to Global Times.

The team decided to box up the cultural relics and carry out conservation research through laboratory archaeology thereafter.

The fish-scaled armor discovered in the Marquis of Haihun’s tomb was composed of iron, copper, and leather, in contrast to the Han Dynasty’s custom of using only one material for armor. For the first time, a composite design of this kind from the Han Dynasty has been discovered.

The discovery of the armor from the tomb of the Marquis of Haihun provides important material data for the study of armor-making techniques in the Han Dynasty.

Cover Image Credit: Armor pieces from the tomb of the Marquis Haihun Photo: Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

World’s oldest cheese found in necklaces on 3600-year-old mummies in China

World’s oldest cheese found in necklaces on 3600-year-old mummies in China

World’s oldest cheese found in necklaces on 3600-year-old mummies in China

A mysterious white substance about 20 years ago found on Bronze Age mummies in western China has proven to be the world’s oldest  cheese.

Researchers discovered three ancient mummies in Xinjiang in northwestern China. When the 3,600-year-old coffin of a young woman was excavated, archeologists discovered a mysterious substance laid out along her neck like a piece of jewelry.  It was made of cheese, and scientists now say it’s the oldest cheese ever found.

Scientists have successfully extracted DNA from a 3,600-year-old cheese. Identified as kefir cheese, the discovery provides new insights into the origins of kefir and the development of probiotic bacteria.

It has been long suspected that the substance may have had a fermented dairy origin, but only now have molecular tools become powerful enough to confirm their make-up.

Qiaomei Fu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and her colleagues have identified the substance as a type of kefir cheese based on the presence of lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and proteins from ruminant  milk in the samples.

“This is the oldest known cheese sample ever discovered in the world,” says co-author Qiaomei Fu, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a statement from the journal Cell.

 “Food items like cheese are extremely difficult to preserve over thousands of years, making this a rare and valuable opportunity. Studying the ancient cheese in great detail can help us better understand our ancestors’ diet and culture.”

Examples of the 3,600-year-old kefir cheese found on the mummies. Credit: Y, Liu et al., Cell, 2024

Since the woman’s coffin was covered and buried in the dry climate of the Tarim Basin desert, Fu said, it was well preserved, as were her boots, hat, and the cheese that laced her body.

Ancient burial practices often included items of significance to the person buried alongside them. The fact that those items included chunks of kefir cheese alongside the body showed that “cheese was important for their life,” she added.

The cheesy bits are, in fact, pieces of kefir cheese, a dried and fermented dairy product made with the same type of bacteria, yeast, and fungal complex as modern kefir, which is typically consumed as a sour liquid akin to thin yogurt, according to genetic analysis of the microbes within. Instead of using rennet, which is frequently used in the production of cheese in Europe, kefir granules ferment the milk.

The latest research also reveals that the necklaces included at least two different kinds of cheese, one made from goat milk—more precisely, from a kind of goat that was common in Bronze Age Eurasia—and the other from cow’s milk.

Additionally, the kefir granules have genetic signatures that are quite similar to those of some East Asian kefir strains and contemporary Tibetan dairy products. Microbes from the Caucasus region, which has long been believed to be the birthplace of dairy, are more closely related to other strains from East Asia, Europe, and the Pacific Islands.

Altogether, the analysis points to two different geographic origins of kefir-making: one in Xinjiang and one in the Caucasus, says Qiaomei Fu. “Our observation strongly suggests the distinct spreading routes of two [kefir microbe] subspecies,” Fu tells Popular Science, which she adds is likely the result of wide-ranging nomadic groups traveling across the dry grassland of Eurasia.

The evolution of human activities spanning thousands of years also affected microbial evolution, the study found, citing the divergence of a bacterial subspecies that was found to have been facilitated by the spread of kefir across different populations.

148 Ancient Tombs Spanning 2,100 Years Unearthed in the Construction Area of the Zoo

148 Ancient Tombs Spanning 2,100 Years Unearthed in the Construction Area of the Zoo

148 Ancient Tombs Spanning 2,100 Years Unearthed in the Construction Area of the Zoo

An ancient burial site with 148 tombs,  spanning over 2,100 years, has been discovered on the construction site of the Guangzhou Zoo in South China’s Guangdong Province.

The tombs date from the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) to the early years following the founding of the People’s Republic of China, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.

The Yuefu, which collected musical descriptions;  the Shiji, a history penned by Sima Qian, the fu, a poetic form; lacquerwork and woven silk; and scientific breakthroughs like the invention of paper, the use of water clocks and sundials to measure time, and the development of a seismograph are among the many notable accomplishments of the Han dynasty.

The tombs were discovered in the zoo’s construction area between April and July 2024. The Guangzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology led the excavation of approximately 1,300 square meters in this area.

The site includes four Han Dynasty tombs, eight from the Jin and Southern dynasties (265-589), 15 from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and 121 from the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911). A total of 196 artifacts, including pottery, porcelain, bronze items, jade, and bead ornaments, along with 48 gravestones from the Republic of China (1912-49) period to the early years of the PRC, were unearthed.

Among the most significant discoveries are a nearly intact Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420) tomb and a well-preserved Southern Dynasties (420-589) tomb.

Notably, the discovery includes a well-preserved Eastern Jin tomb, which is large and structurally complex. The 10-meter-long tomb chamber shows no significant damage, aside from a robbery hole above the sealing door. It is the largest and best-preserved Eastern Jin tomb discovered in Guangzhou.

The slightly smaller tomb from the Southern Dynasties was identified to be a shared burial place for a married couple. Small holes at the top indicate that it was also looted, but otherwise, the structure is nearly intact.

Cheng Hao, an official with the institute, said that the tombs discovered this time are very densely distributed, and span a period of more than 2,100 years.

“The discovery of these two tombs is of great significance to the study of burial shapes, stages and funeral customs during the Six Dynasties period (222-589) in Guangzhou, as well as to the research on the construction technology during the Jin and Southern dynasties’ architecture,” Cheng said.

There is a pattern to the way the tombs are arranged, especially in the Ming and Qing burial chambers. They are not only oriented and scaled similarly, but they also have a uniform gap between them. This implies that the area was a planned and well-organized cemetery.

These discoveries are crucial for understanding burial practices, architectural techniques, and historical customs in Guangzhou during these periods.

The Guangzhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has engaged the public through educational tours in collaboration with the Guangzhou Zoo, allowing visitors to learn more about the significance of these archaeological activities.

The Truth Behind The 4000-Year-Old Skeletons Of “A Mother Who Was Trying To Shield Her Child”

The Truth Behind The 4000-Year-Old Skeletons Of “A Mother Who Was Trying To Shield Her Child”

The Truth Behind The 4000-Year-Old Skeletons Of "A Mother Who Was Trying To Shield Her Child"

Images of skeletons from the Lajia site in the Qinghai province of China are captivating. Painstaking excavation and pedestaling of the bones reveals adults and children in a 4,000-year-old embrace.

But while these images have gotten media attention today, the archaeological site has been excavated since 1999 by archaeologists primarily from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Qinghai Provincial Institute of Antiquity and Archaeology.

By Kristina Killgrove

The site of Lajia is associated with the Qijia culture, dating to the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age, and is located in the Guanting Basin of the upper Yellow River.

This site has produced everything from cave-dwelling type houses to pottery kilns to the remains of preserved millet noodles. The spectacular preservation appears to be the result of a catastrophic event: somewhere around 1900 BC, an earthquake shook the area and caused mudslides. Writing in a 2013 article in The Holocene, Chun Chang Huang and colleagues explained that “the enormous mudflows suddenly buried and destroyed the dwellings and killed the women and children at their homes.” But these mudflows, even though triggered by an earthquake, were “created partly by the early settlers themselves” through “soil erosion, mass wasting and accumulation of debris on the hillsides, intensified largely by human disturbance of the landscape by bush clearance from 6000-3950 years before present.”

Of course, my interest was piqued by the image of the skeletons of an adult and a child found embracing, particularly because the caption referred to a mother and son (as DNA is the only way to tell the sex of young children).

The main publication of the skeletons (in English, that is), is a 2007 article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Shi-Zhu Gao and colleagues at Jilin University in China that deals with DNA analysis of the 16 skeletons from two houses inundated by the mudslides.

Gao and colleagues were interested in knowing if the 16 individuals were related and looked at mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through the maternal line. “Twelve [DNA] sequences from individuals found in one house were assigned to only five haplotypes,” they write, “consistent with a possible close kinship.” The two skeletons — an adult woman in her mid-30s and a 3- to 4-year-old child — whose image has riveted the media today are assumed to be mother and child, but many media outlets are speaking of “mother and son.”

The only way to tell the sex of a subadult is through DNA analysis, but the 2007 publication has no information on sex of the child.

Even more interesting, though, were the DNA results of these two individuals. Gao and colleagues write that, “the two mtDNA sequences from the individuals of F3 (one of the houses) differ from each other at five nucleotide positions.

Although these two subjects may be genetically linked by a mother/son (or daughter) relationship, this result unambiguously excludes kinship through the maternal lineage.” Further, they explain that these people and their mtDNA haplotypes were different from the individuals in F4 (the other house).

A patrilineal relationship remains a possibility since their skeletal remains were found close together.”

There was one group that did represent a mother-child pair according to the DNA analysis: a late 20s female and a 1- to 2-year-old child from house F4. I don’t think this is the pairing illustrated in the circulating image above for two reasons: the child skull in that photo is more consistent with a 3- to 4-year-old, and based on the diagram in the 2007 article and the image below, the photos show two different adult-child pairs.

I couldn’t find a clear image that represents the biological mother-child pair, although the photo above shows most of the groups from house F4.

According to my cross-referencing of the 2007 article with these images, the biological mother-child pair is represented by the skeletons at the very bottom.

Skeletons from house F4 at Lajia, China. The skeletons that showed a mother-child relationship.

Regardless of which dyad is depicted, what was the relationship between the adult woman and the 3- or 4-year-old child in house F3? Was she perhaps an aunt or an unrelated caregiver? Perhaps they were members of the same extended family? The 2007 DNA results seem to directly contradict the easy explanation of mother protecting her child. But that is, I think, what makes both the archaeological and the DNA results even more exciting.

What was the structure of the family like at Lajia? And what does the protective stance of a woman over a child, not biologically her own mean for our understanding of Bronze Age China?

The photos from the “Pompeii of the East” are certainly breathtaking, but the story behind them is even more complicated and intriguing.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillg…

Lost World War II Sub Discovered in South China Sea

Lost World War II Sub Discovered in South China Sea

Lost World War II Sub Discovered in South China Sea
An octopus on the “conning” or command tower of the wreck of the American submarine USS Harder, which sank near the Philippines in 1944 after a battle with a Japanese destroyer.

Shipwreck hunters have discovered the remains of a famous American submarine that sank with 79 crew members on board while fighting a Japanese warship near the Philippines in 1944.

According to the New York-based Lost 52 Project, which made the discovery, the wreck of USS Harder now lies on its keel on the bottom of the South China Sea near the northern Philippine island of Luzon at a depth of around 3,750 feet (1,140 meters).

Naval reports of the sub’s final mission say the Harder — a Gato-class sub named after a type of fish (the harder mullet) and nicknamed the “Hit ‘Em Harder” — sank with all crew on Aug. 24, 1944 after it was heavily damaged by depth charges in a battle with a Japanese destroyer.

The Harder was one of the most famous American submarines of World War II. U.S. Navy records report that it torpedoed and sank five Japanese destroyers and several other enemy ships during six successful patrols in the Pacific war theater.

“This is one of the most celebrated WWII submarines and an historic naval discovery,” Tim Taylor, the founder of the Lost 52 Project, told Live Science in an email.

USS Harder—known as the “Hit ‘Em Harder”—sank several enemy warships and was one of the most famous American submarines during World War II.
The wreck lies upright on the seafloor at a depth of about 3,800 feet. It was found by studying reports of its final battle, and by searching suitable sites with sonar and autonomous underwater vehicles.

The “Lost 52 Project” that found the wreck aims to locate all 52 American submarines that went missing during World War II and four that sank during the Cold War.

War grave

Taylor is the CEO of a company called Tiburon Subsea, which uses autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and other technologies to collect data at underwater sites. He also leads the Lost 52 Project, which aims to locate the wrecks of the 52 American submarines lost at sea during World War II and four lost during the Cold War. 

The group has already located the wrecks of eight vessels, making the wreck of USS Harder their ninth discovery, Taylor said. Each of the underwater wrecks is also a war grave for the crewmembers who died when it sank, and the missing crew of the Harder were remembered for their service when the wreck was found.

“We have a protocol that, when we locate a submarine, we memorialize the crew,” Taylor said. “We observe a minute of silence, ring the bell for every member of the crew and have a prayer service led by a deacon who is part of our expedition team.”

The team located the wreck by studying reports of its final battle and then searching suitable areas with shipboard sonar, which can reveal objects on the seafloor, and AUVs, which can go much deeper than human divers.

But even after they take steps to make the search patterns as efficient as possible, “It is a long and arduous process, like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Taylor said.

Sunken sub

The extreme depth of the wreck meant that AUV searches were essential, although a period of relatively good weather in recent weeks made the search easier. 

The Harder wreck is too deep to be visited by divers, and the U.S. Navy has designated the wreck as a protected site. “The wreck represents the final resting place of sailors that gave their life in defense of the nation and should be respected by all parties as a war grave,” the Navy said in a statement.

Taylor added that the AUV images show that the vessel appears to be in good condition. “The submarine is relatively intact, minus the damage done by the depth charges,” he said. 

And now, after 80 years under the waves, the wreck seems to be a thriving home for sea life, including an octopus that Taylor saw in the AUV images. 

“It is a protected gravesite for 79 US WWII sailors, but there is a lot of life on the submarine,” he said. “It’s quite extraordinary.”

2,700-year-old leather saddle found in woman’s tomb in China is oldest on record

2,700-year-old leather saddle found in woman’s tomb in China is oldest on record

The leather horse saddle from the tomb at Yanghai in northwest China is dated to roughly between 700 and 400 B.C. and may be the oldest ever found.

Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborate leather horse saddle — possibly the oldest ever found — from a grave in northwestern China, according to a new study. 

The saddle, preserved for up to 2,700 years in the arid desert, was discovered in the tomb of a woman at a cemetery in Yanghai, in the Turpan Basin of China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The woman was dressed in a hide coat, woolen pants and short leather boots, and had a “leather saddle placed on her buttocks as if she was seated on it,” according to the study, published Tuesday (May 23) in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia.

The saddle — two cowhide cushions filled with a mixture of straw and deer and camel hair — was made between 724 and 396 B.C., according to radiocarbon dating. It may predate saddles known from the Scythians — nomadic, warlike horse riders from the western and central Eurasian Steppe who interacted with the ancient Greeks and Romans. The earliest Sythian saddles seem to date from between the fifth and the third centuries B.C. and have been found in the Altai Mountains region of Russian Siberia and in eastern Kazakhstan.

The graveyard near Yanghai is in the Turpan Basin region, in the east of the Tian Shan mountains, which was occupied by the Subeixi people from about 3,000 years ago. 

“This places the Yanghai saddle at the beginning of the history of saddle making,” study lead author Patrick Wertmann, an archaeologist at the University of Zurich, told Live Science.

The tombs at Yanghai are thought to be from people of the Subeixi culture, who occupied the Turpan Basin from about 3,000 years ago. The culture is named after another graveyard of tombs near the modern town of Subeixi, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Yanghai. 

Horse herds

2,700-year-old leather saddle found in woman's tomb in China is oldest on record
The archaeologists also examined a saddle from another Subeixi graveyard in the region, which is thought to have been made at about the same time.

Archaeologists now think horses were domesticated as herd animals up to 6,000 years ago. But the earliest evidence suggests they were kept for their milk and meat; horse-riding may not have started until up to 1,000 years later.

The first riders used mats secured to the backs of horses with straps; carvings show Assyrian cavalrymen with such horse-gear in the seventh century B.C.

Archaeologists don’t know exactly when true saddles were invented, but they likely were developed by horse-riders in Central Asia about the mid-first millennium B.C., which would make the Yanghai saddle among the oldest, Wertmann said. 

The development of saddles began “when riders began to care more about comfort and safety, and also the health of the horses,” he told Live Science in an email. “Saddles helped people to ride longer distances, hence leading to more interaction between different peoples.”

The early Scythian saddles and the Yanghai saddle both have distinct supports, which help riders maintain a firm position and raise themselves in the saddle, such as when shooting an arrow. The first saddles also had no stirrups, Wertmann said.

Female riders

The saddle was found in the tomb of a woman from the pastoralist Subeixi culture; it was positioned so that she seemed to be riding the saddle.

The Subeixi had similar weaponry, horse gear and garments to the Scythians and may have had contact with them in the Altai Mountains region, the study authors wrote. But while the Scythians were nomads, the Subeixi horse-riders were likely pastoralists who looked after herds of animals within the Turpan Basin.

University of Zurich biomolecular archaeologist Shevan Wilkin, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that the extraordinary level of preservation of the Yanghai saddle suggests other, potentially older saddles, may be found nearby.

“Usually for something organic that’s this old, like leather, then we wouldn’t have any remnants of it, or very little,” she said.

The seated position of the buried woman on the saddle suggests she was a rider. “This really shifts our ideas about who was riding horses,” Wilkin said.

Birgit Bühler, an archaeologist at the University of Vienna, who also wasn’t involved with the study, told Live Science in an email that the discovery in an ordinary tomb is “strong evidence for women participating in the day-to-day activities of mounted pastoralists, which included herding and travelling.”

The find contradicts traditionalist historical narratives associating horse-riding with warfare by elite men, she said.

1,800-Year-Old Tombs Excavated in Eastern China

1,800-Year-Old Tombs Excavated in Eastern China

An ancient family in eastern China constructed three underground tombs, filled them with treasure and laid their loved ones to rest. Century after century wore on the burials. Thieves broke in. Eventually, the site was forgotten.

But not anymore.

Archaeologists in Rizhao city dug up a partially damaged mound ahead of the expansion of a nearby park, the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a May 11 news release shared via the China Archaeology Network.

Underneath, archaeologists found three tombs from the Han dynasty, a period that, according to Britannica, lasted from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.

1,800-Year-Old Tombs Excavated in Eastern China
A view looking into the 1,800-year-old tomb known as M2, one of the robbed burials.

Uncover more archaeological finds

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The 1,800-year-old tombs were similar in style, with two burials in each and sloping tomb passageways to the entrances, the institute said. Inscriptions in two of the tombs had the same surname, Huan, indicating the complex likely belonged to a family.

Tomb M3 as seen before archaeologists removed its wooden cover.

Two of the ancient tombs had been robbed, archaeologists said. The wooden coffins were left in the graves but very few artifacts remained.

The third ancient tomb, however, was well-preserved and relatively untouched, the institute said. A photo shows this tomb, known as M3.

A view into the 1,800-year-old tomb M3.

The main burial chamber of the M3 tomb had two rooms connected with miniature windows and doors. A photo shows these unique wooden windows. Archaeologists said the residential style suggested the tomb contained a husband and wife.

A miniature wooden window found in the M3 tomb.

Archaeologists also found over 70 artifacts inside the tomb. Photos show some of these treasures, including an iron sword, bronze mirrors and stacks of several different types of pottery.

A rusty sword found in the 1,800-year-old tomb.

Around one of the wooden coffins, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a coffin carriage, a structure used to transport the coffin into the tomb, the institute said. They described it as exquisitely crafted and an uncommon find.

Several red pottery artifacts found at the ancient family’s tombs.

Archaeologists described the 1,800-year-old family tombs as a significant and important discovery. Finding the same last name inscribed in several tombs is rare, the institute said.

Some of the pottery artifacts found at the 1,800-year-old tomb complex.

The excavation in Rizhao started last December and ended in January. Rizhao, sometimes translated as Jihchao, is a city in Shandong province along the eastern coast of China, a roughly 400-mile drive southeast from Beijing.

New Dates Obtained for Modern Human Remains in China

New Dates Obtained for Modern Human Remains in China

New Dates Obtained for Modern Human Remains in China
Frontal view of the Liujiang cranial and postcranial elements.

Some of China’s oldest Homo sapiens remains are about 10 times younger than previously thought. Skeletal remains of a modern human discovered in 1958 were found in southern China’s Liujiang District.

It was previously thought that the remains were up to 227,000 years old. It is thought modern humans began their trek out of Africa about 300,000 years ago.

Location of Tongtianyan cave (Liujiang) in Guangxi Province, southern China, together with the location of other key fossils of Homo sapiens in China.

Now a re-analysis of the bones published in Nature Communications has revised the estimate age of the Chinese remains to between 33,000 and 23,000 years ago.

“These revised age estimates align with dates from other human fossils in northern China, suggesting a geographically widespread presence of H. sapiens across Eastern Asia after 40,000 years ago,” says co-author Michael Petraglia, a professor at Australia’s Griffith University.

The team’s reassessment is based on radiocarbon and other techniques: optically stimulated luminescence, which measures how long it has been since sediments have been exposed to sunlight, and U-series dating which is another radiometric technique which uses uranium isotopes instead of carbon.

“This finding holds significant implications for understanding human dispersals and adaptations in the region,” says lead author Junyi Ge from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “It challenges previous interpretations and provides insights into the occupation history of China.”

Debate continues as to when modern humans made it out of Africa, where we evolved about 300,000 years ago, to East Asia.

Fossil teeth found in southern China’s Fuyan Cave are suggested to be 80,000–120,000 years old. Other finds support the idea that Homo sapiens have been in China for at least 40,000 years.

It is believed that modern humans arrived in Australia about 65,000 years ago.

Besides Homo sapiens, however, other ancient humans made it to East Asia much earlier.

Remains found near Beijing belonging to a Homo erectus individual known as “Peking Man” are between 230,000 and 780,000 years old. Other hominin finds in China are nearly 2 million years old.