中国晚旧石器时代人类与其南邻(尼阿人及塔邦人)的关系

RELATION BETWEEN UPPER PALEOLITHIC MEN IN CHINA AND THEIR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS IN NIAH AND TABON

本文计算了中国旧石器时代晚期人类几个头骨与尼阿洞人之间的歧异系数,结果是柳江人与尼阿洞人的距离小于后者与澳大利亚大约同时期的人类的距离,也小于其与山顶洞人之距离。本文还根据一些形态特征的相似性讨论了尼阿洞人、塔邦洞人与亚洲大陆及澳大利亚古人类的关系。结论认为亚洲大陆对尼阿人有过相当大的影响,塔邦洞人也接受过一些来自北方的影响。

The author has calculated the coefficients of divergence among skulls from upper Paleo- lithic China and Niah cave. The results are as follows. Niah-Liujiang 0.033 Niah-Upper Cave 101 0.078 Niah-Upper Cave 102 0.050 Niah-Upper Cave 103 0.048 Upper Cave 102-Upper Cave 103 0.030 Liujiang-Upper Cave 101 0.056 Based on these figures and referred to the figures provided by D. Brothwell in his paper on Niah Cave Man (1960, Niah-Talgai 0.057; Niah-keilor 0.061), we can find that Niah and Liujiang are very close. If the figure between UC102 and UC103 can be considered as repre-senting the normal intrapopulation divergence for the same sex, the degree of difference between Niah and Liujiang is probably even as close as that of intrapopulation one. The affinity be-tween Liujiang and Upper Cave is less than that between the former and Niah. There are morphological features worthy of mentioning. The cranial index of Niah skull (77.8) is very different from those in Australian and Indonesian late Pleistocene skulls (Talgai 73.4, Keilor 72.6, wadjak I 74.5). On the contrary it is closer to those of Liujiang skull (75.1) and Ziyang (77.8). The shape of the upper dental arch of Niah is similar to that of Liujiang and different from that in Australia. The palatal index of Niah (78.9) is much higher than that of Talgai (64.5). Although it is close to that of Keilor (83.5) but the absolute length of palate of Niah (47.5 mm) and Keilor (56.5 mm) are very different. So does the breadth of palate (37.5 mm for Niah, 47.2 mm for Keilor), while the Niah palate is similar to that of Liujiang in absolute measurements and index (45 mm in length, 36 mm in breadth, 80.0 in in-dex). Indeed, the coefficient of divergence between Niah and Tasmanians is slightly lower than that between Niah and Liujiang. The author considers that the results gained from comparing upper paleolithic Niah man with upper paleolithic man in both China and Australia are more valuable and reasonable than that gained from comparing Niah man with modern man. The affinity between Niah and Liu-jiang is closer than that between Niah and Australian Pleistocene ones. Niah man was pro-bably the product of gene exchange between the Asian and Australian continents. Another pos-sibility is that Kalimantan might have acted as a transfer station on the way of human migra-tion from Asian continent to Australia. Considering the early date of Niah man the latter pos-sibility seems more probable. The agenesis of lower third molar is more frequent in Mongoloids (Eskimo 36.6%, mo-dern Chinese 5.14%-40.6% according to different authors) than in Australoids (1.5%) and can be traced as early as Lantian mandible dated more than half million years ago. There is a longitudinal thin ridge along the median part of the nasal bone from Tabon. Similar structure can be seen in Homo sapiens fossils in China (Dali, Maba and Upper Cave 101). The above mentioned two phenomena in the Tabon specimens may probably imply the in-fluence from Asian continent than that from the South. Tabon man might be a represent ative of the product of interbreeding between early man of Australian and Asian continents.