via PNAS, 23 February 2021: New analysis of dates from sites in Southern China further affirm the idea that modern humans first arrived into Southern China (and probably thereafter into Southeast Asia) around 50,000 years ago.
The expansion of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) from Africa around 65,000 to 45,000 y ago (ca. 65 to 45 ka) led to the establishment of present-day non-African populations. Some paleoanthropologists have argued that fossil discoveries from Huanglong, Zhiren, Luna, and Fuyan caves in southern China indicate one or more prior dispersals, perhaps as early as ca. 120 ka. We investigated the age of the human remains from three of these localities and two additional early AMH sites (Yangjiapo and Sanyou caves, Hubei) by combining ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis with a multimethod geological dating strategy. Although U–Th dating of capping flowstones suggested they lie within the range ca. 168 to 70 ka, analyses of aDNA and direct AMS 14C dating on human teeth from Fuyan and Yangjiapo caves showed they derive from the Holocene. OSL dating of sediments and AMS 14C analysis of mammal teeth and charcoal also demonstrated major discrepancies from the flowstone ages; the difference between them being an order of magnitude or more at most of these localities. Our work highlights the surprisingly complex depositional history recorded at these subtropical caves which involved one or more episodes of erosion and redeposition or intrusion as recently as the late Holocene. In light of our findings, the first appearance datum for AMHs in southern China should probably lie within the timeframe set by molecular data of ca. 50 to 45 ka.
something is seriously wrong with these dates .If as seems the case modern humans were arriving in Australia at 50 to 60 thousand years ago and have come through S.E.Asia about 70 thousand years ago { the lowest sea levels in the past 100,000 years ] They must have started out a lot earlier ..I am inclined to think modern humans, evolved somewhere else than Africa….. Remember neanderthals had bigger brains than us and if we were lucky enough to cross with them we may have had even smaller brains than we have now…Hurts to accept this…