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Palaeoanthropological evidence from China is changing the picture of hominin evolutionary history

Nature Ecology & Evolution (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recent palaeoanthropological discoveries in China indicate that eastern Asia had an important role in the evolutionary history of the genus Homo over the past 2 million years. New taxonomic proposals have been made to re-group archaic human fossils, including those considered to be Denisovans, as Homo juluensis and Homo longi. The hypothesis that the affinities of Yunxian 2, dated to about 1 million years ago, also infer an early divergence of the Homo sapiens lineage further underscores China’s pivotal role in global evolutionary narratives. Here we explore key biological and cultural evidence emerging from the Chinese record and its evolutionary implications, raising questions about the relationships between ‘transitional’ clades and their differing adaptive capabilities. Rather than an evolutionary cul-de-sac, China now appears as a dynamic evolutionary crossroad where multiple Homo lineages may have arisen, interacted and adapted to shifting environments. The growing fossil and genetic evidence point to a diversity of populations whose demographic history and gene flow exchange helped to shape the broader mosaic of our species.

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Fig. 1: Geographic distribution of the Homo fossil record in China over the past 2 million years.
Fig. 2: Key hominin fossils and behaviours in China over the past 2 million years.

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Acknowledgements

S.-X.Y. receives funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 4252206). M.M.-T. receives support from grant no. PID2024-156477NB-C32 financed by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER UE and the Leakey Foundation through the personal support of W.D. Crook. M.P. receives funding support from Griffith University. We thank F. Huan and N. Lin for assistance with the figures. We thank C. Stringer for his constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Shi-Xia Yang

  2. Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Shi-Xia Yang & Michael Petraglia

  3. Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Burgos, Spain

    María Martinón-Torres

  4. Anthropology Department, University College London, London, UK

    María Martinón-Torres

  5. Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Michael Petraglia

  6. School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Michael Petraglia

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  1. Shi-Xia Yang
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  2. María Martinón-Torres
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Contributions

S.-X.Y., M.M.-T. and M.P. designed and wrote the paper together. S.-X.Y. collected the data and designed the figures. M.M.-T. conducted analyses and summarized the biological evidence. S.-X.Y. and M.P. conducted analyses and summarized the cultural evidence.

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Correspondence to Shi-Xia Yang, María Martinón-Torres or Michael Petraglia.

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Yang, SX., Martinón-Torres, M. & Petraglia, M. Palaeoanthropological evidence from China is changing the picture of hominin evolutionary history. Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-02983-w

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