Chinese researchers have provided new age estimates and revised provenience information for the Liujiang human fossils, which represent one of the most complete fossil skeletons of Homo sapiens in China, according to a recent research article published in Nature Communications.

The emergence of Homo sapiens in Eastern Asia is a topic of significant research interest, while well-preserved human fossils in secure, dateable contexts in this region are extremely rare.

Tongtianyan cave in Liuzhou City, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is one of the most important fossils finds of H. sapiens, though its age has been debated, with chronometric dates ranging from the late Middle Pleistocene to the early late Pleistocene.

Through the four-year comprehensive stratigraphic and chronological studies, the researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Nanjing Normal University and the CAS Institute of Geology and Geophysics have solved a 66-year chronological mystery and dated the Liujiang H. sapiens to between 33,000 and 23,000 years ago.

The revised age estimates correspond with the dates of other human fossils in northern China, including Tianyuan Cave and Zhoukoudian Upper Cave, indicating the geographically widespread presence of H. sapiens across Eastern Asia in the late Pleistocene.

The comprehensive study is significant for integrating the Liujiang human fossils into the early modern human evolutionary sequence and better understanding human dispersals and adaptations in the region.