There is ever more research from China on ancient humans.
I've heard people say this is a politically motivated effort to place China at the heart of human evolution. And no doubt that is at least partly true. After all, scientific funding has to come from somewhere.
But the view that we should be skeptical of their claims is overly cynical in my opinion. In fact, Southeast Asia is extremely important in the story of human evolution and researchers in China and elsewhere are just starting to catch up with a century of work carried out in Europe and Africa - especially East Africa.
When we look at arrows on a world map emerging from Africa to spread around the globe, this badly distorts the complex history of population movements in all directions for hundreds of thousands of years.
We had Homo erectus or maybe Denisovans carrying out ocean crossings in Southeast Asia 700,000 years ago. There's Homo luzonensis and Homo floresiensis in the Philippines and Indonesia.
In China itself there's Homo longi ("the Dragon Man" - great branding, named after the Dragon River) and they will surely uncover more of the story of the Denisovans there.
In fact, China might not just be playing catchup. It might actually be especially important in understanding the deep past.
Either way, it's an exciting time and I look forward to all the new research.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/03/archaeologists-uncover-previously-unidentified-set-of-cultural-innovations-from-40000-years-ago/142958
