Tianyuan man, also known as Tiányuándòng Rén in Chinese, is the remains of one of the earliest modern humans in East Asia. In 2007, scientists discovered 34 bone pieces from one person in the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China. Tests showed the bones are between 42,000 and 39,000 years old. These bones might be a bit younger than similar bones found in the Niah Caves in Sarawak, Borneo. Tianyuan man is one of the oldest known members of the East Eurasian group, which includes modern East and Southeast Asians, Siberians, and Native Americans.
Subsistence
No information is known about the objects or items used by this person, as no tools, items, or other signs of culture have been discovered at the location. Scientific tests show that a large part of his food came from fish found in lakes or rivers.
Physical anthropology
Tianyuan man is considered to be an early example of modern Homo sapiens. He does not have certain jaw features that are common in later, more ancient West Eurasian humans, which shows he is different from them. Based on the wearing of his teeth, scientists believe he died in his 40s or 50s. His modern human features and a high crural index suggest he had some recent ancestry linked to populations from more equatorial regions.
Like the Zhoukoudian remains found in Beijing, the Tianyuan remains show more "southern" physical traits, similar to populations that first moved into the Asia-Pacific region through a southern route.
The first DNA analysis of the Tianyuan remains (focusing on mitochondrial DNA and chromosome 21) was published in 2013. It showed that Tianyuan man is related to many present-day Asians and Native Americans but had already genetically separated from the ancestors of modern Europeans. He belonged to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup B and paternal haplogroup K2b.
A genome-wide analysis confirmed that Tianyuan man is closely related to modern East Asian and Southeast Asian populations, as well as other early Asian groups like the Hoabinhians, Xingyi, or Papuan lineages. However, the Tianyuan lineage is not directly linked to modern populations but represents an early, deeply diverged member of the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) lineage, which is the base of all later East and Southeast Asian populations. The Tianyuan man lived during the Initial Upper Paleolithic period, at least 45,000 years ago, and was part of a population movement with shared genetic and cultural traits. He shares deep ancestry with other ancient remains, such as Bacho Kiro, Peștera cu Oase, Ust'-Ishim man, and the ancestors of modern-day Papuans.
The lineage of Tianyuan man (called the "ESEA" lineage) is believed to have split from Ancient East Eurasians after a southern migration route and later divided into the Hoabinhian lineage, the Tianyuan lineage, and a lineage that led to modern East and Southeast Asians.
The Tianyuan lineage can be described as a mix of two groups: one similar to the Onge people from Southeast Asia (about 61%) and another from an early East Eurasian group linked to the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) movements into Siberia (about 39%). This second group is distantly related to the Bacho Kiro cave remains. Earlier studies suggested about 64% of Tianyuan man’s ancestry was similar to modern East Asians and 36% was linked to the Ust'-Ishim man, an early East Eurasian individual.
Tianyuan man shows strong genetic similarities with GoyetQ116-1, a 24,000-year-old individual found in Belgium. GoyetQ116-1 shares more genetic traits with Tianyuan man than with other West Eurasian individuals. GoyetQ116-1 is believed to have 17–23% ancestry from an IUP-affiliated population, which is also linked to Tianyuan man. This population is closely related to the Bacho Kiro cave remains. Studies suggest this IUP-affiliated group existed before the split between European and Asian populations and was part of early East Eurasian migrations.
Tianyuan man also shares strong genetic ties with a 33,000-year-old individual (AR33K) from the Amur region and Mongolia. This suggests that Tianyuan-like ancestry was common in northeastern Asia during the Paleolithic period. This genetic group is called the "Tianyuan cluster." Later, during the Last Glacial Maximum (19,000 to 26,000 years ago), this cluster was replaced by Ancient Northern East Asian ancestry, as seen in the Amur19k remains. However, the exact reasons for this change are not clear. The Amur19k remains are the base of later Northern East Asian populations and are distinct from Ancient Southern East Asian remains.
The Tianyuan-related cluster did not have a specific version of the EDAR gene found in the Amur19k individual and later Northern East Asian populations. This gene version is also missing in other East Eurasian groups, such as Papuans and the Jōmon people of Japan. A 2025 study found that Tianyuan man had the highest Denisovan ancestry among East Eurasians.
Modern and ancient East Asians mostly inherited their ancestry from a group related to the Onge people (76–79%), with some additional influence from the Tianyuan-related group (21–24%). Around 22,000 to 26,000 years ago, the Tianyuan cluster was replaced by East Asian-like ancestry. A 2025 study suggests that the ancestors of ancient East Asians were a mix of Tianyuan-related and Early Neolithic Xingyi-related ancestry. While the Hoabinhian, Xingyi, and Tianyuan lineages are equally different from modern East Asians and each other, the Hoabinhian and Xingyi groups show some connections to East Asians, possibly due to later genetic mixing.
A Tianyuan-like population contributed about 29–50% of the ancestry of Ancient North Eurasians, with the rest coming from Early West Eurasian groups like the Kostenki-14 specimen. A 34,000-year-old individual from Northern Mongolia (Salkhit) had about 75% ancestry from a Tianyuan-like group and 25% from a Yana-like group. This individual had a complex genetic relationship with Ancient North Eurasians. There is also evidence of small amounts (about 2%) of Tianyuan-related ancestry in the Upper Paleolithic Sungir population of Western Russia, along with traces of Denisovan ancestry. Similarly, GoyetQ116-1 from western Europe shows extra genetic links to both Tianyuan and the Bacho Kiro IUP specimen, but this is due to gene flow from the latter. Increased Tianyuan-related ancestry in Eastern hunter-gatherers is explained by high Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, while similar links in Iberian hunter-gatherers (MLZ) are due to high GoyetQ116-1 ancestry.
Basal