A well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China.

Abstract

This paper deals with a well-preserved human cranium of late Middle Pleistocene, belonging to a young male individual. It has many characters identical to those of early Homo sapiens or intermediate between Homo erectus and modern man. It possesses also some features similar to those of modern man, and close to Homo erectus in some respects. So it probably belongs to an archaic type to early Homo sapiens. Taken with other Chinese human fossils it is on the continuous human evolutionary line in China. The cranium differs from Neanderthals in a number of racial characteristics. It is therefore considered here a new subspecies: Homo sapiens daliensis.