Lantian Man

Lore & Background

The first fossil, a nearly complete mandible, was recovered on July 19, 1963, by a team funded by the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) outside Chenchiawo Village. It was found in reddish clays atop a gravel layer. Woo Ju-Kan formally described it in 1964, noting its similarity to Peking Man and provisionally classifying it as "Sinanthropus" lantianensis. Later that year, a partial skull was discovered at Gongwangling, and Woo recommended the combination Homo erectus lantianensis. The skull is too distorted to assess its relationship with other Homo erectus populations, so it remains unclear if Lantian Man and Peking Man are more closely related to each other than to Java Man.

Reader's Guide

Lantian Man's significance lies in its antiquity and its role in understanding early human dispersal out of Africa. The Gongwangling skull, dated to 1.65–1.59 million years ago, is roughly contemporaneous with the Dmanisi humans (Homo erectus georgicus) and the earliest known humans outside Africa. This suggests that Homo erectus rapidly dispersed across the Old World after leaving Africa. The fossils also show that Lantian Man manufactured stone tools including handaxes, picks, and cleavers characteristic of the Acheulean industry, which persisted far longer in this region than elsewhere. The dating of the fossils has been revised multiple times, with the 2015 study by Zhu-Yu Zhu and colleagues providing the current widely used dates. Lantian Man's brain volume of about 780 cc is similar to contemporary archaic humans in Africa but much smaller than later Asian Homo erectus and modern humans.

Did You Know?

• The Gongwangling skull has a brain volume of about 780 cc, similar to contemporary African archaic humans but smaller than later Asian Homo erectus.
• The stone tools associated with Lantian Man are simple Oldowan-like flakes and choppers, not Acheulean handaxes.
• The Chenchiawo mandible is missing its third molars, but this condition is not attributed to a genetic disorder in standard scientific accounts.
• The 2015 study by Zhu-Yu Zhu and colleagues dated the Gongwangling skull to 1.65–1.59 million years ago, making it the oldest firmly dated Homo erectus in East Asia.