"But she is extremely beautiful for an ape-woman," said Xu Hankui, a researcher with the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The ape-woman -- whose fossilized skull was found in 1992 along with the skull of an ape-man in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province -- has recently demonstrated her beauty to scientists as her existence allegedly proves the "marital relations" or genetic hybridization between Chinese and European ape-men.

Along with the skull of the ape-man, who was further progressed than the woman, it shows that human evolution in China was continuous, Xu said.

Latest research shows that the ape-woman from Nanjing lived roughly the same period as the Peking Man, about 600,000 years ago.

The above achievements, published recently in a journal entitled Homo Erectus from Nanjing, were made jointly by researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Beijing Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CAS, Department of Geography Sciences of Nanjing Normal University, Peking Union Medical Hospital and Jinzhou Medical College of northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The two well-preserved skulls from Nanjing, which Chinese scientists studied for a decade, were found in Huludong Cave, a limestone den in the northeastern extremity of Tangshan Hill in suburban Nanjing.

Rare Fossils

In June 1992 when local residents cleaned the cave to turn it into a tourism site, they found large quantities of bones, many of which were fossilized.

Mu Xi'nan, Xu, Mu Daocheng and Zhong Shinan -- researchers with the Nanjing geology and paleontology institute -- were invited to the cave, where they collected numerous mammal fossils over two months with Luo Lunde, a professor at Southwestern Normal University, who was then visiting the institute.

The specimens were sent to Xu Qinqi, a researcher from Beijing Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, in September.

Xu suggested the mammals appeared to have lived in the same Middle Pleistocene era as those in Zhoukoudian, and associated with Peking Man.

Expecting to find human fossils, the two institutes organized a joint working team at the end of 1992, looked through the cave and collected half a truck load of mammal fossils, according to Xu.

When scientists left in early 1993, they asked the workers to pay special attention to human fossils, which may occur in the deposits to be removed.

At the southern end of Huludong Cave workers found a smaller underground cave, which was separated from the larger one by a clay deposit more than one meter deep.

On March 13, 1993, Liu Liansheng, a local worker, was cleaning the smaller cave when he saw a "strange-looking stone" in the clay deposit.

Nanjing institute researchers were informed and they rushed to the site. As they removed the wet soft earth covering the "stone," a thick eyebrow ridge emerged.

"It's a skull similar to that of Peking Man," they agreed.

The skull, later proven to be the ape-woman, was stored by the Nanjing Museum along with the skull of the ape-man, which was found in April in deposits in the larger cave.

Huludong Cave is among six sites in the world where two or more skulls have been unearthed, according to Xu.

The others are in Beijing, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Yunxian County in central China's Hubei Province. There is still a dispute over the latter as to whether the skulls are ape-men or mammals.

What is more, the two skulls from Nanjing were both well preserved, especially the No 1 skull. It boasted the anterior of the skull-cap and almost all facial bones, including the nose bridge, of the left side.

"Fossilized facial bones are very rare. The skull-cap can hold the pressure because of its shape, but the nose bridge and eyebrow ridges are delicate,” Xu noted.

"Most of the rare human remains are only fragments. The ape-man from Yuanmou (in southwest China's Yunnan Province) only had two teeth and part of a shin-bone left, and the famous Heidelberg remains were a lower jaw and a cranial bone fragment."

Researchers measured the size of the two skulls' various bones, calculated the cranial capacity, made plastic models of the remains and used computers to flesh out the facial bones to create an image.

They even "planted" long hair on the skull-cap models.

And before their eyes appeared a young woman in her 20s or 30s and a man of about 30.

New Evidence

"It's her, not him," said Xu as he pointed to the model of skull No 1.

"The skull is lighter, smaller and smoother on the surface. It's typical of a female individual then.

"She was probably between 21 and 35 when she died, possibly around 27. To find an age you have to look at the sutures among bones. The sutures are obliterated as they age."

Scientists concluded in the journal that the No 1 Nanjing skull was similar to that of Peking Man in the following ways -- it is very small, its cranial capacity is only limited at 860 milliliters, the forehead is flat and receding, the cranial vault is low and relatively long.

"Nanjing skull No 1 possesses many morphological features shared with the majority of other fossilized humans in China. These features indicate that the Nanjing population had certain degrees of genetic connection with other fossil human populations in China," said the journal.

The young ape-woman probably lived at the same time as Peking Man as calculated by scientists from the proportion of radioactive elements in the fossil and its surrounding clay.

But she was not a "copy" of her six Peking Man brothers. She was different -- she had a high nose bridge and a mound-like bulge at the lower part of her mouth.

"The protruding nose and the paranasal bulge are rarely seen in China, but are common in European fossils especially in Neanderthal lineage," Xu said.

"The existence of these features in Nanjing skull No 1 might suggest a small amount of gene exchange between China and Europe at the time."

At the time, the lands of Asia, Europe and Africa were connected and interaction among the ape-men populations was possible, Xu said.

"The morphology of Nanjing skull No 1 provides further support to the hypothesis of continuity with hybridization in human evolution in China."

The hypothesis, which says human evolution in China was a continuous process, but genetic interaction with other populations did occur, was proposed in 1999 by Wu Xinzhi, a CAS academic.

Skull No 2 or the Nanjing ape-man is also monumental in supporting the "continuity" of human evolution in China because it is the only evidence found for the transitional stage between Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens in the country, according to Xu.

The theory of evolution says apes first became Homo erectus, then Homo sapiens and finally modern man.

Remains of the different stages had been unearthed in China, but the human evolution theory still needed proof as no transition evidence was found.

The Nanjing ape-man apparently lived ages later than the Nanjing ape-woman. He had some Homo erectus features and Homo sapien features. Scientists concluded the ape-man lived about 400,000 years ago. Like the ape-woman, he shared both features of Peking Man and his fossilized peers in Neanderthal lineage.

"The feature is probably the result of gene flow from Europe or Africa. The skull provides more evidence supporting the hybridization in human evolution in China," Xu said.

"The average temperature in Nanjing at the time of the ape-woman and the ape-man was about seven degrees lower than that of today," Xu said.

"The ape-men lived with tigers, leopards, foxes, elephants and badgers, in the caves among temperate broadleaf woods. It's really not that pleasant."

(China Daily March 12, 2003)