Further discussion on the factor causing the highly protruding nasal saddle of Homo erectus from Nanjing
WU Xinzhi
2008, 27(03):
191-199.
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A comparison on the faunae from Nanjing and at Zhoukoudian Homo erectus sites indicates similarity between the paleo-climate of them, but the nasal profile of Homo erectus from Nanjing is protruding while that of Zhoukoudian is flat. The florae of Zhoukoudian, Gran Dolina and Galeria of Atapuerca are somewhat similar in having some common plants such as Quercus, Pinus, Cupressaceae, Betula, Juglans, Ulmus, Carpinus, while the nasal profile of human fossils from Zhoukoudian and Sima de los Huesos of Atapuerca are quite different in the degree of protruding. So both protruding and flat nasal profiles could be seen in the environments with similar paleo-temperatures.The paleo-climate for Quyuan RiverMouth hominid is warm, if the nasal profile of skull E9002 is originally protruding before being deformed, it refutes the view that protruding profile of Nanjing Homo erectus is caused by cold environment. Bodo and Kabwe skulls are yielded from the tropical zone, that of Petralona and Arago are from the temperate zone, and they all have similarly protruding nasal saddle, thisfact is unfavorable to the notion that the protruding nasal saddle is caused by cold climate. Coon( 1962, 534) presented the measuring data of the infraorbital foramen of Greenland Eskimo, La Ferrassie 1, La Chapelle and modern Europeans. He wrote that the Eskimos and Neanderthal keep their faces from freezing in part by a relatively great blood flow as indicated by the large bore of the infraorbital foramen while modern Europeans have much smaller infraorbital foramens with a diameter around 3mm. The Homo erectus from Nanjing has only a single infraorbital foramen also with 3mm in diameter. This strengthens the notion that facial morpgology of Nanjing Homo erectus is not resulted from cold adaptation.
Based on the above mentioned evidence and the paper published in Number 4 of last volume of this journal, the present author believes that the protruding nasal profile of Homo erectus from Nanjing is unlikely produced by adaptation to cold paleo-environment, another alternative should be considered. The nasal profile of most of human fossils in China and other parts of Eastern part of Asia is flat, while that in Europe is more protruding. It is probable that the degree of protruding of the nasal saddle is one of the characters which distinguish the human lineage of East Asia from that of Europe. If Bodo and Atapuerca SH are within an evolutionary lineage and the protruding nasal profile of the latter could be inherited from the Bodo population, why not the protruding nasal profile of Nanjing could be derived also from Bodo population?
In 1998 the present author proposed an hypothesis, Continuity with Hybridization, for the human evolution in China. The present article together with the article published in 4th issue of last volume of this journal, provides new evidence for this hypothesis in addition to those shown in other Middle Pleistocene fossils, such as the rounded orbit and its sharp infero-lateral margin in Maba cranium as well as the paranasal bulge in Dali skull which are rarely seen in China and are frequently shown in the Middle Pleistocene fossils in Europe and Africa.
