Mandible Fossil Suggests 4th Group of Early Man in Asia

Tokyo, Jan. 27 (Jiji Press)--A fossilized mandible apparently from a new category of early human has been discovered, an international research team said Tuesday. The mandible, fished up from the Penghu submarine channel, some 25 kilometers off the western shore of Taiwan, has been dated at between 190,000 and 450,000 years old, according to the group, which includes researchers from the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, Kyoto University and Taiwan's National Museum of Natural Science. The jaw and teeth appear stronger and more primitive than specimens from two other Homo erectus, Java Man and Peking Man. It is also different from Homo floresiensis, the so-called "hobbit" hominid, whose fossilized remains were found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, according to the group. Penghu Man could represent a fourth group of Homo erectus in Asia, Yousuke Kaifu, researcher at the Japanese nature museum said. The team would have to recover the cranial bone of Penghu Man to confirm this, he said. The findings were published in British science journal Nature Communications Tuesday. The Penghu mandible is similar to a hominin assemblage from Hexian, southern China, nearly 1,000 kilometers north of Penghu. The assemblage, believed to date from 150,000 to 400,000 years ago, was discovered in the 1980s. It is also said to point to the possibility that a fourth hominid group existed. The group determined the age of the Penghu mandible by analyzing the contents of fluorine and sodium in bone samples. The Penghu channel is believed to have been part of mainland China during the Pleistocene epoch, when sea levels were low. The 2-centimeter-thick mandible is the right side of a lower jaw. Its gender is unknown, but it appears to be from an elderly hominid because the molars are worn down. The research team acquired the mandible from a fossil collector and began its investigation in 2010. END