The north and south China faunas are subdivided along the line of Huaihe River-Qinling Mountains- Hengduan Mountains-Himalayas, to the north is the Palearctic Region, and to the south is the Oriental Region, which is the result of long-time evolution. Hundreds of Quaternary fossil localities have been known up to now, more than 60 of which contain warm-adapted elements which can be referred to 20 species. Among the warm-adapted elements appearing in north China, Hystrix, Macaca, Palaeoloxodon, Dicerorhinus and Bubalus are the most frequently recorded genera. There are three kinds of causal explanation about the frequent appearance of warm-adapted elements in north China: The first hy- pothesis attributed them to the dispersal events of warm-adapted mammals from the south during warm stages or warm seasons; the second scenario thinks that these warm-adapted mammals in north China were once derived there in situ and subsequently emigrated to the south with the cooling down of the global climate; the last hypothesis believes that these warm-adapted elements were not real warm-climate animals at that time. This study shows that almost none of the warm-adapted mammals in north China was recovered in the loess, and also almost all of the fossil localities which bear warm-adapted mammals fall within the warm temperate zone of nowadays. In fossil assemblage, those warm-adapted elements rarely co-exist with the cold-adapted mammals. All these evidences mentioned above indicate that the warm-adapted mammals in north China represent warm climate, but not hot one. Because all these warm-adapted mammals are widely distributed oriental elements, some of them even still exist north of the Huaihe River today. Up to now, no typical oriental elements have ever been re- covered in north China, such as pangolin, primitive primates (e.g. loris and tarsier), big apes (e.g. Gi- gantopithecus, Pongo and Hylobates), etc. The Late Pleistocene lasted a relatively shorter time, but the appearance of warm-adapted mammals during that span wer
This article presents a fossil human scapula which was found in situ from the lower part of the Salawusu Formation in 1980 at the Salawusu site of Inner Mongolia,China. The stratum is dated from 70.9±6.2 ka BP to 124.9±15.8 ka BP by TL method. Dates from 44±7 ka BP to 63±3 ka BP, 61―68 ka BP and 35.34±2 ka BP are obtained for the lower part of this layer by 230Th, IRSL and 14C respectively. Based on the comparisons between this scapula and the scapulae of Neanderthals, Skhul/Qafzeh fossils, Eurasian Upper Paleolithic specimens and recent modern humans on the glenoid fossa, axillo-spinal angle, axillary border and other features, the present authors arrived at a preliminary conclusion that this Salawusu scapula is characterized by modern fea- tures of Upper Pleistocene humans mixed with a Neanderthal-like feature.
