汉阳人化石的发现

1997年初,在湖北省武汉市汉南区纱帽镇附近长江边的沙滩上采集到一件古人类头盖骨化石,初步认定为晚期智人类型,因地命名为“汉阳人”。这是继1956年发现长阳人上颌骨化石,1971年和1972年在郧县梅铺和白龙洞发现直立人牙齿化石,1989和1990年在郧县曲远河口发现直立人头骨化石后,这一地区旧石器时代的又一重大发现。化石发现地点在古化遗址汉阳纱帽山下游约300米处。     

略论北京地区的旧石器时代文化

北京地区有着较为丰富的旧石器时代遗存,从早期的北京直立人、中期的新洞人文化,到晚期的山顶洞人文化,经历了数十万年之久,绝对年代约从距今60万年延续至距今1万多年。北京旧石器时代文化始终以小型石片石器为特色,反映出长期以来主要从事草原一森林环境下猎取动物的经济方式。早中期文化和晚期文化间差异虽较显著,但也明显存在联系,北京直立人应当对原始蒙古人种的形成有过一定影响。     

现代人类起源的理论问题

现代人类起源的理论问题龚缨晏现代人类在生物学上一般被称为晚期智人,现代人类又分为不同的人种;在现代人类出现之前,地球上生息着被称为早期智人的古人类。现代人类是怎样产生的？现代人类与早期智人的关系如何？不同的人种又是怎样形成的？从远古神话到达尔文的进化...     

湖北郧县直立人遗址研究新进展

郧县人Ⅰ号头骨、郧县人Ⅱ号头骨分别于1989年5月和1990年6月出土于中国湖北省郧县直立人遗址。2000年以来中法两国学者对遗址进行了深入研究,在考古学、古人类学、沉积学、微观形态学、地球化学、磁性地层学、地球年代学和孢粉学研究方面取得了一些新成果。研究成果显示遗址的年代在距今984000~780000年之间,两具头骨化石的年代在距今936000年左右,是世界上更新世早期重要的直立人化石之一;郧县人遗址石制品面貌比较古老,是中国南方典型的砾石石器文化传统。     

南京直立人生存年代的研讨

南京直立人(晚期直立人)自1993年发现以来,国内外的不同单位所测定的年代则各不相同,从1996年的距今35万年,到1998年的42万年、1999年的50万年,再到2001年的58—62万年。从长江中下游地区旧石器时代早期化的分布规律、南京附近地区旧石器时代早期化年代、及南京人动物群与北京人动物群的对比情况看,南京直立人的生存年代不可能超过距今50万年,而应为距今35～40万年。     

关于东亚远古人类与史前文化交流的讨论

在生物分类学中,“人类”(Home)是个属名,一般认为,人类这个属可以分为三个种:能人、直立人和智人。近年来,随着科学新发现的增多,有人还提出了不少人属新种名,如“鲁道夫人”、“匠人”、“海德堡人“等,但这些新种名现在还没有得到一致的认可(吴汝康:《人类起源研究的新进展和新问题》,《人类学学报》1994年第4期;《对人类进化全过程的思索》,《人类学学报》1995年第4期。托拜厄斯:《直立人及其在人类演化上的位置》,《人类学学报》1995年第4期。刘武:《西班牙新发现的人类化石及人属一个新种的命名》,《人类学学报》1997年第4期)。我们…     

科学家发现距今180万年的最古老武器

2008年底,日本考古学家在马来西亚发现大量穴居人类使用过的非常古老的硅制工具——一柄石英岩制成的斧头。经过东京地质年代鉴定委员会研究认为,该石斧距今已有180万年左右。这柄石斧的发现,佐证了人类起源于多地的说法——直立人演变成智人的过程几乎是同时在地球的各个地方发生。同时也反驳了目前所流行的非洲是人类起源地这一理论。     

辽宁本溪庙后山遗址铀系测年初步结果

庙后山是位于我国东北的重要中更新世人类遗址。报道该地点出土人类化石的第5、6堆积层次生碳酸盐岩和骨化石样的铀系测年结果。夹生于第6堆积层3个钙板的年龄分别为276、>535、346ka,其下第5层中的钙板为526±31ka,据此第6层顶部应至少为200ka,第5层中部应大于500ka。结果远大于该地点原基于骨化石铀系测年的年代框架,支持中国直立人和早期智人交替比原认为约200ka早得多的观点。     

周口店遗址的遗产价值与科研潜力

<正>周口店遗址是东亚古人类的重要家园,在很长的时期内一直是我国古人类学、旧石器时代考古学和第四纪地质学的科研基地。该遗址丰富的人类化石、文化遗物和动物化石都是珍贵的文化遗产和科学资源,是东亚直立人向智人演化的证据链和材料基础。过去对这些材料整理与研究的局限性为未来系统而深入的研究工作和产生新的成果预留了空间。遗址区仍然埋藏着丰厚的科学资源,新的发现、发掘和研究势必在探索东亚地区古人类体质与行为特点、演化过程以及生存环境背景的重建等诸方面取得新的突破。     

北京人的火光

正作为古人类中直立人的典型代表,北京人的脚步几乎抵达了直立人所能生活的最北界。直立人从温暖的非洲起源、扩张,它们能够走出非洲,走向广袤的亚洲,甚至北进至冬季寒冷的北京地区并长期繁衍生息,有一项技能起到了关键的作用,那就是——用火。他们在昏暗的洞穴中点燃的熊熊火光,温暖了居所,烤熟了生食,吓跑了野兽,把周口店的龙骨山变成了自己的温馨家园。火光照亮了北京人的生活。     

Human Security as ontological security: a post-colonial approach

ABSTRACT

This article will critically interrogate the relationship between Human Security and Ontological Security from a broadly postcolonial perspective. The dislocation engendered by successive waves of neo-liberal globalisation has resulted in the deracination of many of the world's inhabitants, resulting in a state of collective ‘existential anxiety’ [Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991]. Under such conditions, the search for ontological security becomes paramount. However, conventional understandings of Human Security as ‘freedom from fear and want’ are unable – from a post-colonial perspective – to provide ontological security since they operate within a culturally specific, Eurocentric understanding of the ‘human’ as ‘bare life’ [Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Daniel Heller-Roazen (trans), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998]. It will then be argued that post-secular conceptions of Human Security [Giorgio Shani, Religion, Identity and Human Security, London and New York: Routledge, 2014] by acknowledging the role which culture and religion can play in providing answers to existential questions concerning the ‘basic parameters of human life’ are better able to ‘protect’ ontological security in times of rapid global transformation given the centrality of religion to post-colonial subjectivity. This will be illustrated by the case of the global Sikh community. It will be argued that ontological, and therefore, Human Security rests on reintegrating the ‘secular’ and ‘temporal’ dimensions of Sikhi, which had been severed as a result of the colonial encounter.     

人文地理学的历史概况与我国人文地理学的发展

本文探索人文地理学从十九世纪中叶以来的发展特点。重点在于介绍人文地理学在发展新的理论、新的方法和新的部门所取得的意义。
人文地理学在我国是随着二十年代开始的近代地理教育而发展的。本文还讨论了我国不同时期人文地理学发展的特点以及城市地理、人口地理、旅游地理和历史地理在七十年代后所取得的进展。此外,该文还提出政治地理,文化地理、行为地理等部门的研究仍然比较落后。最后,该文对人文地理学各部门今后发展作了预测。     

Population relationships of later Pleistocene hominids: A multivariate study of available crania

The Neanderthal populations of the Upper Pleistocene have been regarded by a number of anthropologists as direct ancestors to modern man. Results of multivariate analyses conducted in this study suggest that early Neanderthal crania were morphologically more like modern Homo sapiens than were the later Neanderthals. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of archaeological evidence and comparative studies of Pleistocene crania from outside Europe.     

‘How Time Flies’: Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 1960s

Recent histories of human rights have identified the 1970s as the most decisive epoch in the birth of the modern rights era. These works have tended toward a parenthetic dismissal of the period 1948–70 as years of interregnum, of marginal impact to the ‘breakthrough’ moment which followed. This article argues for a more complex periodisation, and reclaims the importance of the 1960s. Far from an undifferentiated abyss, the two decades between the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the 1968 International Human Rights Year held their own shifts, integral to the evolution of modern human rights. A crucial transition in the status of the UDHR occurred across the mid-1960s, roughly aligned with the terminal years of liberal post-colonialism. Through a comparison of two hitherto neglected events in the history of human rights, the fifteenth and twentieth anniversary commemorations of the UDHR, in December 1963 and 1968, this article traces the trajectory of that transition. These commemorations, concentrated moments of explicit reflection on the meaning of human rights, encapsulated the gulf between the early and the late 1960s. In the space of five years, any vestigial consensus on the vision enunciated in 1948 was obliterated.     

《人文地理》1986-2004年刊载论文统计分析

《人文地理》是我国唯一专门研究人文地理学的学术期刊,本文对该刊1986~2004年19年共81期的论文、论文第一作者和引文进行了统计分析,从中揭示了载文量的时空分布特点,展示了该刊作者群的基本特点,确定了该刊活跃作者群的数量和比例,归纳出人文地理科学工作者利用文献的基本特点和规律.同时也回顾了我国人文地理学的发展历程,掌握我国人文地理研究队伍的变化及发展状况,力求对人文地理学的进一步发展与研究队伍建设有所启示,并对《人文地理》期刊的发展提供有益的参考.     

The significance of the fossil hominid skull from Petralona,Greece

Evidence is accumulating that the hominid cranium found in the Petralona cave in 1960 is associated with cave deposits of middle Pleistocene age. If this is so, the fossil is the most complete middle Pleistocene cranium yet discovered and provides important morphological, metrical and radiographic information on the possible evolutionary transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. The classification of the specimen is discussed and it is suggested that a grade system within Homo spaiens should be erected. The Petralona fossil would be allocated to Homo sapiens grade 1 rather than to Homo erectus or to a subspecies of Homo sapiens.     

Demography and the extinction of European Neanderthals

Causes previously suggested for the sudden extinction of Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) in Europe, starting around 35,000 years ago, comprise food shortage, climatic effects and violence from Modern Humans. The aim here is to formulate a demographic model with reconstructed fertility and death rates, capable of modelling the population development under conditions of changing climate and prey availability, from the early appearance of Neanderthals in Europe about 260,000 years ago to their demise. Parameter variation studies are made for the parameters considered to have the highest uncertainty. Finally, the option of regional migration between northern, middle and southern Europe is added, in order to capture population movements away from a region in response to deteriorating or improving climate. This model accounts for population developments, including the re-population of the Middle and Northern regions of Europe during and after the warm Eem period. However, parameter choices that give plausible results during the initial 210,000 years also predict that the Neanderthals should have survived the latter part of the Weichselian ice age, despite competing for food with Modern Human newcomers during the last part of the period. The conclusion is that other reasons for extinction than climate or starvation must be sought.     

Vault thickness in two Pleistocene Australian crania

This study examines vault thickness in two Pleistocene crania at the centre of discussions about the evolution of Indigenous Australians and competing scenarios about modern human origins: Willandra Lakes Human (WLH) 3 and WLH 50. We estimated total vault thickness and thickness of the diploë, external and internal table on CT-scans, and undertook a quantitative comparison of them. We found that they differ significantly in absolute thickness, but are similar in terms of the relative contribution to thickness made by the diploic space and total table. They also differ significantly in terms of relative variation in thickness, and in several instances, WLH 50 shows greater variability than WLH 3. This finding undermines pathology as an explanation for thickness in the former cranium. Among later hominins, WLH 50 is highly unusual in possessing an extremely thick vault at bregma. We show, however, that vault thickness at this landmark is positively allometrically scaled in Indigenous Australians, but negatively scaled in Ngandong Homo erectus. Thus, vault thickness is mostly explained by the extremely large size of WLH 50: one of the largest hominin crania ever found. Moreover, its extreme thickness firmly establishes its affinities with modern humans rather than the Ngandong group. Despite the important role played by epigenesis in the development of the cranial vault, similarities between WLH 3 and WLH 50 indicate some canalisation in the extent to which the various vault components contribute to total thickness.     

The southern dispersal hypothesis and the South Asian archaeological record: Examination of dispersal routes through GIS analysis

This research advances a model for coastal-based dispersals into South Asia during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 4. A series of GIS-based analyses are included that assess the potential for expansions into the interior of South Asia, and these results are compared with known archaeological signatures from that time period. The results suggest that modern Homo sapiens could have traversed both the interior and coastlines using a number of routes, and colonized South Asia relatively rapidly. Use of these routes also implies a scenario in which modern H. sapiens, by either increased population growth or competitive ability, may have replaced indigenous South Asian hominin populations.     

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: protection of human rights in Australia*

This commentary reflects on the legacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its 70th anniversary, in terms of the protection of human rights within Australia. I reflect on Australia’s failure to implement domestically the terms of the two founding Covenants, and the resulting piecemeal protections that exist for human rights. I finish by considering the growing complexities in understanding human rights, responsibilities, and limits.