Catarrhine Evolution in China

Abstract

Cattrthrines (humans and nonhuman primates) in Asia experienced similar migrating routes from Africa to East Asia but with different time frames during the Miocene and Early Pliocene. They dispersed and radiated in East and Southeast Asia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene so that one’s experiences of evolutionary development and biodiversity changes can mutually be interpreted for the others. Thus, it is necessary to jointly explore the issues in mainland China, the major part of East Asia. Their regional fossil diversity profiles during Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Early Holocene and extant distribution patterns of the primates are analyzed in this study. The results indicate that primate diversity reached the climax before the Early Holocene, which has unfortunately been shrunken gradually in the following Holocene, especially during the most recent Chinese history, so that many taxa are on the edger of extinction. That fossil age in Eastern and Central China is older than in Western China clarifies that, instead of from Africa, the modern human (Homo sapiens) evolved directly from H. erectus in the regions.