Enamel proteins from six Homo erectus specimens across China (opens in new tab)

Homo erectus remains have been found in Africa, Eurasia and Southeast Asia1–3, dating back around two million years; however, owing to their age and state of preservation, obtaining informative molecular data from them has proved challenging. Here we successfully extracted and analysed ancient enamel proteins from five male and one female Middle Pleistocene H. erectus specimens from approximately 0.4 million years ago, from the Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong sites. All specimens from all ...