There are seven early anatomically modern human localities in China, the most significant of which are Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian, Tianyuan Cave(very near Zhoukoudian), and Ordos, in Mongolia . The fossils from these Chinese sites are all fully modern, and all are considered to be from the Late Pleistocene, with dates probably less than 40,000 ya. Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian has been dated to 27,000 ya, and the fossils consist of three skulls found with cultural remains in a cave site that humans clearly regularly inhabited. Considerable antiquity has also been proposed for the Mongolian Ordos skull, but this dating is not very secure and has therefore been questioned (Trinkaus, 2005).
In addition, some researchers (Tiemel et al., 1994) have suggested that the Jinniushan skeleton hints at modern features in China as early as 200,000 ya. If this date—as early as that proposed for direct antecedents of modern H. sapiens in Africa—should prove accurate, it would cast doubt on replacement models. This position, however, is a minority view and is not supported by more recent and more detailed analyses. Just about 4 miles down the road from the famous Zhoukoudian Cave is another cave called Tianyuan, the source of an important find in 2003. Consisting of a fragmentary skull, a few teeth, and several postcranial bones, this fossil is accurately dated by radiocarbon at close to 40,000 ya (Shang et al., 2007). The skeleton shows mostly modern features, but has a few archaic characteristics as well.
The Chinese and American team that has analyzed the remains from Tianyuan proposes that they indicate an African origin of modern humans, but there is also evidence of at least some interbreeding in China with resident archaic (that is, premodern) populations. More complete analysis and (with some luck) further finds at this new site will help provide a better picture of early modern H. sapiens in China. For the moment, this is the best-dated early modern H. sapiens from China and one of the two earliest from anywhere in Asia.
The other early fossil is a partial skull from Niah Cave, on the north coast of the Indonesian island of Borneo . This is actually not a new find and was, in fact, first excavated more than 50 years ago. However, until recent more extensive analysis, it had been relegated to the paleoanthropological back shelf due to uncertainties regarding its archaeological context and dating. Now all this has changed with a better understanding of the geology of the site and new dates strongly supporting an age of more than 35,000 ya and most likely as old as 45,000–40,000 ya, making it perhaps older than Tianyuan (Barker et al., 2007). Like its Chinese counterparts, the Niah skull is modern in morphology.
It’s hypothesized that some population contemporaneous with Niah or somewhat earlier inhabitants of Indonesia were perhaps the first group to colonize Australia.