Fossil Orangutan-like hominoid teeth from Late Pleistocene human site of Mulanshan cave in Chongzuo of Guangxi and implications on taxonomy and evolution of orangutan

Fossil records indicate orangutan-like hominoids have been widely distributed in south China during Pleistocene, although currently only surviving in the tropical forests of Kalimantan and Sumatra in Indonesia. This paper describes the recently discovered hominoid fossil teeth from human site of Mulanshan cave in Chongzuo of Guangxi, whose geological age is the Late Pleistocene, about 11000 yeas age based on associated mammal fauna and U-series dating. Compared with those of modern and subfossil orangutans from Indonesia, other fossil great apes from China, the hominoid teeth from Mulanshan cave are orangutan-like, but show somehow different from Indonesia＇s orangutans, the average sizes of cheek teeth larger and occlusal enamel wrinkles less and simpler. They are classified temporarily as the subspecies of Pongo pygmaeus weidenreichi. Concerning the variations of morphological features and dental sizes of orangutan-like teeth from southern China and neighboring northern Vietnam, different subspecies or species or genus possibly, but the key evidence is necessary to be identified.     

The first Sinomastodon (Gomphotheriidae, Proboscidea) skull from the Quaternary in China

The first Sinomastodon(Gomphotheriidae,Proboscidea) skull of the Early Pleistocene,collected from the Renzidong Cave deposits in Anhui Province,Eastern China,is described here as S.jiangnanensis sp.nov.As the only brevirostrine trilophodont gomphotheriid known from the Old World,Sinomastodon was mainly indigenous to China from the Early Pliocene to the Pleistocene.Compared with a few single Pleistocene teeth previously found in China,S.jiangnanensis sp.nov.is represented by a relatively complete skull,mandible and dentition,which is the first discovery of a Quaternary Sinomastodon skull from China.With a brevirostrine,elephant-like skull,no lower tusks,and simple bunodont and trilophodont intermediate molars,the new species is morphologically distinct from other gomphotheres and should belong to the genus Sinomastodon.The new species is more progressive than S.hanjiangensis and the Pliocene type species S.intermedius in its skull and mandible morphology,but is evidently more primitive than the Pleistocene S.yangziensis in its molar morphology.The faunal analysis suggests that the emergence of S.jiangnanensis sp.nov.in Jiangnan area and its southward migration may have been related to a cooling event at the beginning of the Quaternary in Eastern China.     

Eustacia——Victim of Fate——On Thomas Hardy''''s The Return of the Native

Owing to the influences of Greek's view of fate, Dorset peasant's fatalism and Schopenhauer' s pessimistic philosophy, Hardy showed more or less a pessimistic tendency in his early writings and this tendency illustrated itself in his writing of Eustacia, heroine of The Return of the Native. He believed that Eustacia' s tragedy resulted from the disagreement between her aspiration for a brilliant life outside Egdon Heath and the fate imposed on her by some mysterious force working at odds with her. This is what the paper attempts to prove.     

Sinobaatar gen. Nov.: First multituberculate from the Jehol Biota of Liaoning, Northeast China

A multituberculate skeleton from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation at Dawangzhangzi, Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province, Northeast China, provides new morphological information for early multituberculates. The specimen is the holotype of Sinobaatar lingyuanensis gen. et sp. nov. It has a narrow skull that lacks the superorbital crest or postorbital process. The dental formula is 3·?·5·2/1·0·3·2. The dental morphology, especially that of cheek teeth, of S. lingyuanensis is similar to that of Eobaatar, which places it in the family Eobaataridae. The postcranial skeleton of Sinobaatar is similar to that of other multituberculates. As in Holotheria, Metatarsal V of Sinobaatar articulates only with the cuboid and has no contact with the calcaneus, which probably represents the primitive condition of multituberculates. Nine carpals of Sinobaatar resemble those of Zhangheotherium, except the centrale being larger than the trapezoid. The dental features of Sinobaatar show again that eobaatarids are obviously intermediate between Late Jurassic multituberculates and the later forms. Because eobaatarids are only known from the Early Cretaceous, the finding of Sinobaatar, therefore, supports that the age of the Jehol Biota is most likely Early Cretaceous.     

The Homo sapiens Cave hominin site of Mulan Mountain, Jiangzhou District, Chongzuo, Guangxi with emphasis on its age

One of the most hotly debated and frontal issues in paleoanthropology focuses on the origins of modern humans. Recently, an incomplete hominin mandible with a distinctly weaker mental protuberance than modern human and a great variety of coexisting fossil mammals were unearthed from the Homo sapiens Cave of Mulan Mountain, Chongzuo, Guangxi. The mammalian fauna from the Homo sapiens Cave characterized by the combination of Elephas kiangnanensis, first occurring Elephas maixmus, and Megatapirus augustus, and strikingly different from the Early Pleistocene Gigantopithecus fauna and the Middle Pleistocene Ailuropoda-Stogodon fauna of South China could be regarded as an early representive of the typical Asian elephant fauna. Faunal analysis, biostratigraphic correlation, and, most importantly, U-series dating all consistently support an estimate of ca. 110 ka for the age of the fossil Homo sapiens and coexisting mammalian fauna, that is, the early Late Pleistocene. The fauna is mainly made up of tropical-subtropical elements, but grassland elements have a much greater variety than forest elements, which probably indicates a drier climate at that time. This discovery of early Homo sapiens at the Mulan Mountain will play a significant role in the study of the origin and its environmental background of modern humans.     

A Cambrian micro-lobopodian and the evolution of arthropod locomotion and reproduction

The evolutionary success of arthropods, the most abundant and diverse animal group, is mainly based on their segmented body and jointed appendages, features that had evolved most likely already before the Cambrian. The first arthropod-like animals, the lobopodians from the Early Cambrian, were unsclerotized and worm-like, and they had unjointed tubular legs. Here we describe the first three-dimensionally preserved Cambrian lobopodian. The material presented of Orstenotubulus evamuellerae gen. et sp. nov. is the smallest and youngest of a lobopodian known. O. evamuellerae shows strikingly detailed similarities to Recent tardigrades and/or onychophorans in its cellular-structured cuticle and the telescopic spines. It also shows similarities to other, longer known lobopodians, but which are ten times as large as the new form. These similarities include the finely annulated body and legs, which is characteristic also for Recent onychophorans, and paired humps continuing into spines situated dorsally to the leg insertions, a feature lacking in the extant forms. The morphology of O. evamuellerae not only elucidates our knowledge about lobopodians, but also aids in a clearer picture of the early evolution of arthropods. An example is the single ventral gonopore between a limb pair of O. evamuellerae, which indicates that a single gonopore, as developed in onychophorans, tardigrades, pentastomids, myriapods and insects, might represent the plesiomorphic state for Arthropoda, while the paired state in chelicerates and crustaceans was convergently achieved. Concerning life habits, the lateral orientation of the limbs and their anchoring spines of the new lobopodian imply that early arthropods were crawlers rather than walkers.     

Tooth loss and alveolar remodeling in Sinosaurus triassicus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the lower jurassic strata of the Lufeng Basin, China

Pathological or traumatic loss of teeth often results in the resorption and remodeling of the affected alveoli in mammals. However, instances of alveolar remodeling in reptiles are rare. A remodeled alveolus in the maxilla of the Chinese theropod Sinosaurus (Lower Jurassic Lower Lufeng Formation) is the first confirmed example of such dental pathology in a dinosaur. Given the known relationship between feeding behavior and tooth damage in theropods (teeth with spalled enamel, tooth crowns embedded in bone) and the absence of dentary, maxillary, and premaxillary osteomyelitis, traumatic loss of a tooth is most likely the cause of alveolar remodeling. Based on the extent of remodeling, the injury and subsequent tooth loss were non-fatal in this individual.     

Language Is Character;Character,Language——Comments on the connections between Elizabeth's language and character in Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen( 1775-1817), who was the daughter of a country clergyman and never married, lived most of her life in a community much like the one we find in Pride and Prejudice. All of her six novels deal with "the business of getting married"are comedies involving either solitary heroines or young women educated by events to east aside their illusions. Pride and Prejudice was first written in 1796 as First Impressions. It was rewritten(and retitled in     

Special Orientation Relationships Observed at the Early Stages of Recrystallization in Pure AlMn Alloy

Electron Back Scattering Diffraction (EBSD) technique in a SEM was used to obtain local orientational information on new grains and their surrounding deformed matrices at the early stages of recrystallization in pure A1-1.3%Mn alloy. Results show that special orientation relationships including twin-relationship often exist between new grains, between new grains and deformed grains or between deformed grains. The occurrence of such special orientation relationships is attributed to the special deformation behavior in the samples with large initial grain size. The formation of recrystallization twins is discussed in a different way to those of traditional ones.     

Periodicity of Retzius lines in fossil <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pongo</Emphasis> from South China

Periodicity of Retzius lines is a key factor in dental development. In this study, we examined the periodicity of Retzius lines in fossil Pongo from South China using polarized light microscope observation of dental ground sections. The periodicities all of the 15 teeth were 9 d. Comparisons of periodicity were made with extant primates, fossil apes and hominins. Periodicity of fossil Pongo from South China was relatively long but fell within the variation of extant Pongo, Gorilla and modern human, and longer than periodicity of Pan and other extant primates. Fossil Pongo from South China was similar to Lufengpithecus and Sivapithecus, shorter than Gigantopithecus and longer than European and African fossil apes and most early hominins in periodicity. Generally, the periodicities of Asian large-body fossil apes were longer than the periodicities of European and African large-body fossil apes in Miocene. Difference among species and trend of evolution in periodicity were analyzed and discussed. We found that periodicity might gradually increase from Proconsul in early Miocene to several fossil apes in Miocene and then Gigantopithecus in Pleistocene. In addition, this study made correlate analysis between periodicity and body mass respectively in males and females of six extant apes and five fossil apes, and found that periodicity positively correlated with body mass.     

Lower Cretaceous angio-sperm leaf from Wuhe in Anhui ,China

A new early angiosperm leaf species is reported from the Xinzhuang Formation of Wuhe County,Anhui Province,It is probably of Barrenian or slightly later in geological age,The fossil leaf is small,no more than 0.6 cm both in length and in width,The leaf vens are well preserved and clearly visble under a low poer microscope.Leaf architectural analysis shows that such a leaf should belong to the first leaf rank of Hickey ,i.e the most primitive one.There are no early angiosperm leaves published colpletely similar to our.A new species name of Dicotylophyllum minutissimum sp.nov.is established for the present leaf fossils.     

China''s Lunar Exploration Program——The Third Milestone for China''s Space Industry

1PrefaceThe moon is the only natural satellite of theEarth.It has a tranquil,bright and clearappearance in the eyes of people on the Earth.Because of its thin brilliance that brings loverswith quiet warmthinthe night,it is likened to ajade plate or a lovely and graceful woman.In the late1950s and early1960s of the lastcentury,the former Soviet Union and the UnitedStateslaunched spacecraft to explore the moon insuccession.Particularly,the U.S.performedthefirst manned landing in the Apollo11…     

Newly discovered Palaeolithic artefacts from loess deposits and their ages in Lantian,central China

Eight new Palaeolithic open-air sites were identified and 770 stone artefacts were collected from 2009 to 2011 in the Lantian area of the Bahe River valley, central China. Because the famous Homo erectus fossils were unearthed at the Gongwangling and Chenjiawo localities, and more than 30 Palaeolithic open-air sites were investigated in the 1960s in this region, the catchment of Bahe River is regarded as one of the most important hominin sites from the late early Pleistocene to the middle Pleistocene. These eight newly discovered open-air sites are located at the second(n = 6), third(n = 1) or higher terraces(n = 1) of the Bahe River. The Diaozhai section on the second terrace was sampled in detail. Two samples were collected for optically stimulated luminescence dating(OSL). The OSL results suggest that a buried lithic artefact layer at the Diaozhai site spans approximately 70–30 ka. The lithic assemblage analysis suggests that the stone artefacts were made of local pebbles/cobbles such as greywacke, quartz, sandstone and igneous rocks. The main percussion techniques that were used were direct hard hammer percussion and bi-polar techniques. The lithic artefacts comprise hammer stones, cores, flakes, retouched tools and flaking debris. Acheulian-type large cutting tools(LCTs) such as hand-axes, picks and cleavers were indentified in the Lantian region as well. This is the first time Acheulian-type LCTs from the late Pleistocene have been identified in this region. This study distinguishes age gaps between Western world and East Asian Acheulian-type tools.     

Skeletal faunas from the Qiongzhusian of southern Shaanxi: biodiversity and lithofacies-biofacies links in the Lower Cambrian carbonate settings

The Xiaoyang section, located in Zhenba County of Shaanxi Province, is important both for documenting the biodiversity of the Qiongzhusian Stage (Lower Cambrian) and for analyzing lithofacies-biofacies links in carbonate depositing environments on the Yangtze Platform.The skeletal fossils from the Xihaoping Member, including linguloid valves, cambroclavid and chancelloriid sclerites, genal and occipital spines of polymerid trilobites, and tubular fossils, are described here as the Eoobolus-Cambroclavus fauna, which mainly occurred in peritidal environments.The fossils from the argillaceous limestones of the lower Shuijingtuo Formation, containing lingulate brachiopods, eodiscoid trilobites, bivalved arthropods, microdictyoniid sclerites and siliceous sponge spicules, are regarded as the Palaeobolus-Hupeidiscus-Kunmingella fauna, which presumably lived in subtidal or deeper water environments.The faunal diversity in the Xihaoping Member is lower than that in the lower Shuijingtuo Formation.The investigations of the skeletal fossil assemblages from carbonate lithofacies in southern Shaanxi will significantly contribute to a detailed documentation of the biodiversity during the Qiongzhusian interval on the Yangtze Platform and add new knowledge on the Cambrian bioradiation.     

Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China

Since 2004, three excavations have been carried out at a late Pleistocene human fossil site of Huanglong Cave in Yunxi County, Hubei Province of China, which unearthed seven human teeth, dozens of stone tools, mammal fossils and other evidence indicating human activities. During the third excavation in 2006, in the same layer as the human teeth, we found some patches of black materials embedded in the deposit. We doubted that this black deposit layer is the remains of burning or even human use of fire at the cave. To further explore the possibility of human fire use at the Huanglong Cave, we examined samples directly taken from the black deposit layer and compared them with samples taken from several places in the cave using three methods: micromorphology, element content determination and deposit temperature analysis. Our results indicate that the contents of carbon element in the black deposit reach 64.59%―73.29%. In contrast, contents of carbon element of the comparative samples from other parts in the cave are only 5.82%―9.49%. The micromorphology analysis of the black deposit samples reveals a plant structure like axial parenchyma, fibrocyte, uniseriate ray and vessel. High-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements suggest that the stratum possibly underwent a high temperature in the nature. Based on these lab analyses, we are sure that the black layer in the Huanglong Cave is the remains of fire and combustion did occur in the cave 100000 years ago. Taking other evidence of human activities found in the Huanglong Cave into consideration, we believe that the evidence of fire from the Huanglong Cave was caused by the human activities of controlled use of fire.     

Early-stage mineralization of hydrothermal tubeworms： New insights into the role of microorganisms in the process of mineralization

As an important part of marine hydrothermal system, hydrothermal vent faunas live in hydrothermal inorganic environment and closely interact with hydrothermal inorganic environment. Sometimes, they can participate in the mineralization process of modern hydrothermal site. Hydrothermal vent faunas, particularly vesUmentiferan and polychaete tubeworms, are occasionally preserved in the geological record. Study on the early mineralization process of hydrothermal vent fauna is significant for understanding the interaction between mineral and organism, and also the formation and preservation mechanism of geological fossil in hydrothermal environment. In this paper, the early stage of mineralization of Vestimentiferan Ridgeia piscesae tubes collected from Juan de Fuca Ridge is studied. The results showed that a lot of filamentous microorganisms were unevenly distributed on the surface of internal wall and in the interspace of the wall of tubeworm. In some cases, microorganisms aggregated as thin layers in or on the wall of tubeworm. The surfaces of microbial cells and the products of microbial degradation may play an important role in the early mineralization of tubeworm. Semitransparent thin layers of organic matter containing sulfur and sulfur granules were commonly found on the wall of tubeworm with lower degree of mineralization. The degradation production of these semitransparent thin layers may accelerate the mineralization of tube wall during the early stage. EDS results showed that on the tube walls some chemical elements such as Fe, P, Ca and Si are selectively enriched from ambient hydrothermal environment. Interestingly, P, Ca and Si covary with Fe content. Because element S originated from the bio-oxidation of H2S by symbiotic microorganism in the tissue of tubeworm, it can be considered as a biomarker when studying the mineralization process of tube wall. Based on the characteristics of tubeworms with different degrees of mineralization, we suggested that the early mineralization stage of tube wall was mai     

Discovery of organic connection of Chiropteris Kurr and Nystroemia Halle from Early Permian of western Henan, China

Nystroemia reniformis (Kawasaki) comb. nov. is proposed based on specimens showing organic connections between Chiropteris reniformis Kawasaki and Nystroemia pectiniformis Halle from the Lower Permian of Dengfeng in Henan. Vegetative leaf has a long petiole, reniformed, cordate at the base, entire or slightly undulate at the margin;veins are fine, bifurcating repeatedly and finally becoming reticulate and forming polygonal or rhomboidal meshes.Fertile shoot arises from bract axils. The form of the bract is identical to that of a vegetative leaf. Ovuliferous organ arises from the axU of leafy organ, or in other ease, both ovulfferous and leafy organs irregularly arise from the axis of the fertile shoot respectively. Numerous bicornute platyspermic seeds are arranged in two rows, obconical, with micropyle pointing upwards. It may represent a new extinct gymnosperms.