A Newly Discovered Late Pleistocene Lower Third Premolar and the High Frequency Occurrence of Tomes’ Root in the Human Fossil Record from China

摘要

Dental remains provide crucial evidence for interpreting a populations’ affinity as well as human evolution. Recent studies of fossil human teeth have enriched our current view of morphological variation during the Pleistocene in East Asia. In the present paper, we describe a newly discovered late Pleistocene human tooth, a lower third premolar from the Weijiadong cave in Bijie in south-western China, which is dated around 18-20Ka BP using AMS Carbon 14 dating. The tooth is identified as belonging to an early modern human based on its morphology and size. The Tomes’ root is present in this lower third premolar, one of the non-metrical dental traits developed genetically. Moreover, we examine most of the fossil lower third premolars collected from China, as well as material from several Neolithic and historical human assemblages. We find that the Tomes’ root is very common in Chinese human fossils and occurs in high frequency in Neolithic and historic human remains from China. We suggest the high frequency of Tomes’ root may serve as a non-metric dental trait to support inferences regarding regional continuity of human evolution in East Asia.