Geochemical provenancing and direct dating of the Harbin archaic human cranium  

作　　者：Qingfeng Shao Junyi Ge Qiang Ji Jinhua Li Wensheng Wu Yannan Ji Tao Zhan Chi Zhang Qiang Li Rainer Grun Chris Stringer Xijun Ni 

机构地区：[1]Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment,Ministry of Education,Nanjing Normal University,Nanjing 210023,China [2]CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment,Chinese Academy of Science,Beijing 100044,China [3]University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100049,China [4]Hebei GEO University,Shijiazhuang 050031,China [5]Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics,Innovation Academy for Earth Science,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100029,China [6]China Geo-Environmental Monitoring Institute,Beijing 100081,China [7]The Second Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology Prospecting Institute of Heilongjiang Province,Harbin 150030,China [8]Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution,Griffith University,Nathan,QLD,Australia [9]Research School of Earth Sciences,The Australian National University,Canberra,ACT,Australia [10]Centre for Human Evolution Research,Department of Earth Sciences,Natural History Museum,London,UK [11]CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences,Chinese Academy of Science,Beijing 100104,China

出　　处：《The Innovation》2021年第3期62-69,共8页创新（英文）

基　　金：This project has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(41977380,41877430,41842039,41625005,41888101,41988101);the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS XDB26030400,XDB26030300,XDA20070203,XDA19050100);the People’s Government of Hebei Province(Z20177187);the China Geological Survey(DD20190601);the Science Foundation of Hebei GEO University(TS2017-001);the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program(2019QZKK0705)。

摘　　要：As one of the most complete archaic human fossils,the Harbin cranium provides critical evidence for studying the diversification of the Homo genus and the origin of Homo sapiens.However,the unsystematic recovery of this cranium and a long and confused history since the discovery impede its accurate dating.Here,we carried out a series of geochemical analyses,including non-destructive X-ray fluorescence(XRF),rare earth elements(REE),and the Sr isotopes,to test the reported provenance of the Harbin cranium and get better stratigraphic constraints.The results show that the Harbin cranium has very similar XRF element distribution patterns,REE concentration patterns,and Sr isotopic compositions to those of the Middle Pleistocene-Holocene mammalian and human fossils recently recovered from the Harbin area.The sediments adhered in the nasal cavity of the Harbin cranium have a 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.711898,falling in the variation range measured in a core drilled near the Dongjiang Bridge,where the cranium was discovered during its reconstruction.The regional stratigraphic correlations indicate that the Harbin cranium was probably from the upper part of the Upper Huangshan Formation of the Harbin area,which has an optically stimulated luminescence dating constraint between 138 and 309 ka.U-series disequilibrium dating(n=10)directly on the cranium suggests that the cranium is older than 146 ka.The multiple lines of evidence from our experiments consistently support the theory that the Harbin cranium is from the late Middle Pleistocene of the Harbin area.Our study also shows that geochemical approaches can provide reliable evidence for locating and dating unsystematically recovered human fossils,and potentially can be applied to other human fossils without clear provenance and stratigraphy records.

关 键 词：human fossil provenancing non-destructive X-ray fluorescence rare earth elements strontium(Sr)isotopic composition uranium-series disequilibrium(U-series)dating 

分 类 号：G64[文化科学—高等教育学]