New fossil evidence and diet analysis of Gigantopithecus blacki and its distribution and extinction in South China
2013
Zhao, L.X. | Zhang, L.Z.
The present paper reports the recently discovered fossil teeth of Early Pleistocene Gigantopithecus blacki and associated mammalian fauna from Baeryan Cave, Bijie County in Guizhou Province, and also reviews briefly the known fossil sites of Gigantopithecus in south China of Pleistocene. In Early Pleistocene, Gigantopithecus had a wider distribution, but withdrew southward in Middle Pleistocene to a limited area mainly in South China, and it disappeared in the Late Pleistocene according to the present fossil records. Diet and habitat analysis from carbon isotope evidence is used to investigate the reasons for the extinction of Gigantopithecus, which fed on a pure C₃ diet and lived in a forest habitat. It was clearly different from early hominins in South and East Africa, such as Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus and Paranthropus boisei, which had C₄ diets. The extinction of Gigantopithecus was also related to the great changes of climate and environment of the Pleistocene, especially the last one million years, during which Homo became more and more prosperous and exerted great pressure on G. blacki.
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