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Juvenile hominoid cranium from the terminal Miocene of Yunnan, China

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  • Geology
  • Open access
  • Published: 08 August 2013
  • volume 58, pages 3771–3779 (2013)
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Chinese Science Bulletin
Juvenile hominoid cranium from the terminal Miocene of Yunnan, China
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  • XuePing Ji1,2,
  • Nina G. Jablonski3,
  • Denise F. Su4,
  • ChengLong Deng5,
  • Lawrence J. Flynn6,
  • YouShan You7 &
  • …
  • Jay Kelley8 
  • 1844 Accesses

  • 48 Citations

  • 45 Altmetric

  • 5 Mentions

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Abstract

Fossil apes are known from several late Miocene localities in Yunnan Province, southwestern China, principally from Shihuiba (Lufeng) and the Yuanmou Basin, and represent three species of Lufengpithecus. They mostly comprise large samples of isolated teeth, but there are also several partial or complete adult crania from Shihuiba and a single juvenile cranium from Yuanmou. Here we describe a new, relatively complete and largely undistorted juvenile cranium from the terminal Miocene locality of Shuitangba, also in Yunnan. It is only the second ape juvenile cranium recovered from the Miocene of Eurasia and it is provisionally assigned to the species present at Shihuiba, Lufengpithecus lufengensis. Lufengpithecus has most often been linked to the extant orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, but recent studies of the crania from Shihuiba and Yuanmou have demonstrated that this is unlikely. The new cranium reinforces the view that Lufengpithecus represents a distinct, late surviving lineage of large apes in the late Miocene of East Asia that does not appear to be closely affiliated with any extant ape lineage. It substantially increases knowledge of cranial morphology in Lufengpithecus and demonstrates that species of this genus represent a morphologically diverse radiation of apes, which is consistent with the dynamic tectonic and biotic milieu of southwestern China in the late Miocene.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paleoanthropology, Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Kunming, 650118, China

    XuePing Ji

  2. Yunnan Key Laboratory for Paleobiology, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650091, China

    XuePing Ji

  3. Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Nina G. Jablonski

  4. Department of Paleobotany and Paleoecology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA

    Denise F. Su

  5. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    ChengLong Deng

  6. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Lawrence J. Flynn

  7. Zhaotong Institute of Cultural Relics, Zhaotong, 657000, China

    YouShan You

  8. Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Jay Kelley

Authors
  1. XuePing Ji
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  2. Nina G. Jablonski
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  3. Denise F. Su
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  4. ChengLong Deng
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  5. Lawrence J. Flynn
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  7. Jay Kelley
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jay Kelley.

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Cite this article

Ji, X., Jablonski, N.G., Su, D.F. et al. Juvenile hominoid cranium from the terminal Miocene of Yunnan, China. Chin. Sci. Bull. 58, 3771–3779 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-013-6021-x

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  • Received: 28 May 2013

  • Accepted: 08 July 2013

  • Published: 08 August 2013

  • Issue Date: November 2013

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-013-6021-x

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Keywords

  • Miocene hominoid
  • Lufengpithecus
  • cranial morphology
  • hominoid phylogeny
  • fossil primates
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