究 1999年 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ON CHINESE HUMAN FOSSILS TO PALEOANTHROPOLOGY Abstract The first great constribution of the study of Chinese human fossils to paleoanthropology has been fuifilled by the Homo erectus fossils from Zhoukoudian (then Sinanthropus Fein ensis), Iri the first half of this century the definition"Man Before 1930s Pithecanth: opus erectus found in Java was not accepted into the human family because his brain capacity is smaller than the lowest limit of any normal member of modern humans and there is no artefacts found in association with these primate fossils. The discovery of stone artefacts in association with the fossil skull of Sinanthropus indicated that a member of primates with a brain volume smaller than 1 000cc could be a member of humans. This new finding made the Homo erectus from Java( then Pithecanthropus erectus) being accepted into the family of hominid also the Zhoukoudian findings greatly expanded the human fossil record 0. 50Ma B P Since 1960s the ancestral status of Homo erectus has been challanged by new studies in paleoanthropology such as the study on Homo habilis, cladistic studies in paleoanthropology and the molecular anthropology. The study of Homo habilis made LSB Leakey and others claim that this species is the ancestor of moden humans and Homo erectus is an aberrant extinct branch in human evolution. According to some aleoanthropologists who tried to apply cladistics to this field Homo erectus has series of derived characters, so it is not the ancestor of Homo sapiens but is an aberrant extinct branch. The new molecular study on DNA since 1987 formulated th so-called Eve theory which advocates that modern humans originated from a small population living in Africa about 0. 20Ma B P, part of their descendants migrated to China in the period between 0. 1 and 0.05Ma B P, then replaced all of the indigenous people in this region. Therefore all of the fossil humans of China before that time left no descendants and modern Chinese is derived from the African "Eve Studi newly found human fossils in China after 1949 show a series of 201994-2006ChinaAcademicJournalElectronicPublishingHouseAllrightsreservedhttp://mne.cnki.ner© 1994-2006 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. All rights reserved. http://www.cnki.net