Find helps scientists map waves of migration across the continents

The discovery of an “early modern human” dating from 40,000 years ago in a cave outside Beijing, and a comparison of the individual’s DNA with that of populations around the globe, are providing new pieces in the puzzle of how Homo sapiens left their African origins to expand across the continents.

Scientists from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology extracted DNA from the Tianyuan early modern human and compared it with genetic profiles of people living around the world [Credit: Qiaomei Fu]

DNA extracted from the Tianyuan Cave dweller indicated he was genetically related to today’s Amerindians, said FU Qiaomei,  Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, one of the scientists who led the study at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. This Tianyuan fisher-gatherer is one of the earliest H. sapiens ever uncovered in China, she said in an interview.

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