Tianyuan man

Tianyuan man
[50,000~40,000 BP] Tianyuan man Niah man Ust' man Mousterian culture Proto- Aurignacian Deni- sova Kara- Bom Okladnikov Bacho Kiro Oase Emiran culture Shanidar Bhimbetka caves class=notpageimage| Tianyuan man and contemporary cultures c. 50,000~40,000

Tianyuan man (simplified Chinese: 田园洞人; traditional Chinese: 田園洞人; pinyin: Tiányuándòng Rén) are the remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit East Asia. In 2007, researchers found 34 bone fragments belonging to a single individual at the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China.^[1][2] Radiocarbon dating shows the bones to be between 42,000 and 39,000 years old, which may be slightly younger than the only other finds of bones of a similar age at the Niah Caves in Sarawak on the South-east Asian island of Borneo.

Nothing is known directly about the material culture of this individual, since so far no artefacts or other cultural remains have been found at the site.^[2] Isotope analysis suggests that a substantial part of his diet came from freshwater fish.^[3]

Tianyuan man is considered an early modern homo sapiens. He lacks several mandibular features common among western Eurasian late archaic humans, showing its divergence. Based on the rate of dental occlusal attrition, it is estimated he died in his 40s or 50s.^[2] The observed derived modern human features and the high crural index of Tianyuan 1, suggest "some relatively recent ancestry among more equatorial populations".^[4]

The Tianyuan-Zhoukoudian remains still retained more "southern" morphological features associated with the initial peopling of the south-southeast and east Asia region, fitting with a proposed southern route origin for modern east Asian populations and subsequent adaptions in northern east Asia during the Last Glacial Maximum (16,000 to 24,000 years ago).^[5]

The first DNA analysis of the Tianyuan remains (focussing on mtDNA and chromosome 21) was published in 2013 and revealed that Tianyuan man is related "to many present-day Asians and Native Americans" and had already diverged genetically from the ancestors of modern Europeans.^[6] He belonged to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup B,^[6] and paternal haplogroup K2b.^[7]

A genome-wide analysis confirmed the close affinity of Tianyuan man to modern East Asian and Southeast Asian populations as well as other Basal Asians such as the Hoabinhians, Xingyi or Papuan lineages; it was also found that the Tianyuan lineage is not directly ancestral to modern populations, but rather represents a deeply diverged member of the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) lineage, basal to all later populations of East and Southeast Asia.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} The Tianyuan man was determined to be part of an Initial Upper Paleolithic wave, at least 45,000 years ago, "ascribed to a population movement with uniform genetic features and material culture" (Ancient East Eurasians), and sharing deep ancestry with other ancient specimens such as Bacho Kiro, Peștera cu Oase, the Ust'-Ishim man, as well as the ancestors of modern day Papuans (Australasians).^[13] The lineage ancestral to the Tianyuan man (dubbed as the "ESEA" lineage) is inferred to have diverged from the Ancient East Eurasians, following a Southern Route dispersal, and subsequently diverged into the Hoabinhian lineage, the Tianyuan lineage, and a lineage ancestral to all modern East and Southeast Asians.^[10]

The Tianyuan lineage can be modeled to have emerged by a Paleolithic admixture event between a primarily Onge-like source from Southeast Asia (c. 61%) and from a deeply diverged East Eurasian source associated with the IUP movements into Siberia (c. 39%), which were distantly related to the Bacho Kiro cave remains.^{[14][11][15][13]} An earlier model estimated around 64% ancestry related to Eastern Asians and 36% ancestry represented by the deeply diverged Ust'-Ishim man, who represents an "early leaf on the East Eurasian tree", close to a trifurication between West and East Eurasians.^[16][13]

Tianyuan man also exhibits a unique genetic affinity for GoyetQ116-1 from the Goyet Caves in Namur province, Belgium. GoyetQ116-1 shares more alleles with Tianyuan man than does any other sampled ancient individual from West Eurasia.^[8][17] The GoyetQ116-1 specimen is inferred to have received 17–23% ancestry from an IUP-affilated population distantly related to that one which also contributed to the Tianyuan man. This population is closely related to the Bacho Kiro cave remains.^[18][14] Villalba-Mouco et al. (2023) argues that this IUP-affiliated population pre-dated the split between European and Asian populations.^[19]

Ancestry related to the Tianyuan man is defined as Basal East Asian (BEA); ancestry related to Ancient East Asians (AEA); ancestry related to Ancient Northern East Asian (ANEA); ancestry related to Ancient Southern East Asian (ASEA); ancestry related to Ancient Guangxi population (Longlin/AGX).

The initial peopling of Sundaland and the Sahul was carried out by ancestors of modern Papuan New Guineans and Australian Aboriginal populations, followed by deep mainland Asian (Tianyuan- or Onge-related) ancestry, preceding later expansions from Mainland Southeast Asia and Southern China.^[20]

The Tianyuan man displays high genetic affinities to a 33,000-year-old specimen (AR33K) between the Amur region and modern day Mongolia, suggesting that Tianyuan-like ancestry was spread widely in northeastern Asia during the Paleolithic period. This specific group is also known as "Tianyuan cluster". The Tianyuan cluster became largely to completely replaced by Ancient Northern East Asian ancestry during the Last Glacial Maximum (19,000 to 26,000 years ago), evident by the Amur19k remains, although the exact demographic happenings remain inconclusive. The Amur19k remains were found to be basal to later northern East Asian remains, and could already be distinguished from Ancient Southern East Asian remains.^{[21][22][12][11]}

The Tianyuan-related cluster yet lacked the derived variant of the EDAR gene allele, which was observed among the Amur19k individual and succeeding northern East Asian remains. The allele was also absent from other East Eurasian populations, such as Papuans or the Jōmon people of Japan.^[11]

Ancient and modern East Asians can be modeled to derive most of their ancestry from an Onge-like source (76–79%) with gene flow from a Tianyuan-like source (21–24%). Since around 22,000 to 26,000 years ago, the Tianyuan cluster became replaced by East Asian-like ancestry.^[11][15][23] East Asians are equally diverged from the Basal Asian Xingyi and Tianyuan lineages, suggesting that the ancestors of ancient East Asians are an admixture of ancestries related to Tianyuan Man and Early Neolithic Xingyi. Although Hoabinhian or Onge-like groups are equally diverged from Xingyi and Tianyuan, they do not appear to display extra affinity to East Asians.^[12][24]

A Tianyuan-like population contributed around 29–50% ancestry to the Ancient North Eurasians, with the remainder being made up by Early West Eurasian ancestry represented by the Kostenki-14 specimen. A c. 34,000 year old specimen from Northern Mongolia (Salkhit) derives approximately 75% ancestry from a Tianyuan-like population, with the remainder (25%) being derived from a Yana-like population. The Salkhit individual displayed a complex bi-directional relationship to the Ancient North Eurasians.^[25][18][13]

Basal East Asian or "Deep Asian" ancestry represented by Tianyuan or Andamanese Onge contributed to the Peopling of Southeast Asia, following deeply diverged Australasian ancestry and preceding Mesolithic and Neolithic expansions of Ancient Southern East Asians associated with the spread of Austroasiatic and Austronesian languages.^[20]

The Tianyuan man also shares more alleles with South American populations, such as the Surui and Karitiana in Brazil and Chane in northern Argentina and southern Bolivia, than with other indigenous Americans.^[26]

• Hoabinhian man
• Salkhit man