He County or Hexian () is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the east of

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

Province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, under the jurisdiction of

Ma'anshan Ma'anshan ( zh, s=马鞍山, t=馬鞍山, p=Mǎ ān Shān), also colloquially written as Maanshan, is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of Anhui province in Eastern China. Its aliases include Taiping, Steel City, and Poetry City. An i ...

. It has a population of 650,000 and an area of . The government of He County is located in Liyang Town.

History

From 1965 to 2011, He County was under the jurisdiction of

Chaohu Chaohu () is a county-level city of Anhui Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Hefei. Situated on the northeast and southeast shores of Lake Chao, from which the city was named, Chaohu is under the adm ...

. On August 22, 2011, the

provincial government reorganized the province and split Chaohu into three parts that were absorbed by neighboring

prefecture-level cities A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province of China, province and above a Counties of the People's Republic of China, county in China's ...

Geography

He County is located on the northern bank of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

. He County borders

Chuzhou Chuzhou () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Anhui Provinces of China, Province, China. It borders the provincial capital of Hefei to the south and southwest, Huainan to the west, Bengbu to the northwest, and the province of Jiangsu to the ...

to the northwest,

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

to the northeast, the three urban districts of

to the east,

Wuhu Wuhu () is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Anhui province of China, province, China. Sitting on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River, Wuhu borders Xuancheng to the southeast, Chizhou and Tongling to the southwest, Hefei City to the n ...

to the south, and

Hanshan County Hanshan County () is a county in the east of Anhui Province, People's Republic of China under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Ma'anshan Ma'anshan ( zh, s=马鞍山, t=馬鞍山, p=Mǎ ān Shān), also colloquially written as ...

to the west. He County has a total area of 1318.6 square kilometers (509 sq mi), of which 48% is arable land. He County is situated on the Yangtze Plain and has relatively flat terrain in the southeast, with ponds dotting the alluvial plains, with the northwest of the county consisting of rolling hills.

Climate

Administrative divisions

He County has jurisdiction to 9 towns. Its 1 former town and 4 former townships were merged to other towns. ;9 Towns

Archaeology

The human remains discovered at Hexian includes a vault, cranial fragments, mandibular, and dental elements catalogued as PA830-PA835 and PA840-PA845. The site containing

hominin The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus '' Gorilla'' ( gorillas) ...

material was excavated in 1980 and May through June 1981 by IVPP teams alongside many other transitional

mammalian A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

fossils in layer 4 of Longtan Cave. Cui and Wu (2015) suggest that although the site is around 400 ka, better

dating Dating is a stage of Romance (love), romantic relationships in which individuals engage in activity together, often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the cate ...

will be required. It was once called ''Homo erectus hexianensis'', but other studies suggest that the differences in the specimen are not differentiating on the subspecies-level.

Cranium

The

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

(PA830) was discovered in several fragments lacking most of the basicranium. In 1982, the endocast was reconstructed and the cranial capacity was measured to be 1025. The frontal and temporal lobes are almost complete, while the parietal and occipital lobes are complete. Otherwise, the exterior specimen is very well preserved. During the 1981 excavations, a right supraorbital torus and parietal were reported. The thickness, profile, brow, and distinct nuchal-occipital boundary are alike Chinese ''

Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...

''. However, a lack of postorbital constriction, increased width, a curved

sagittal The sagittal plane (; also known as the longitudinal plane) is an anatomical plane that divides the body into right and left sections. It is perpendicular to the transverse plane, transverse and coronal plane, coronal planes. The plane may be in ...

profile, a long parietal, and a high temporal are unlike these groups. Aside from the vault, two parietals, PA840 and PA841, are known.

Mandible

The dental- mandibular remains were discovered in 1980 alongside the vault in excavation pit 3C. The mandible is PA831, and four isolated teeth are PA832, PA833, PA834-1, and PA834-2; PA835 is another tooth. 831 is a mandible with M2 and M3 in place, with a P3-P4

septum In biology, a septum (Latin language, Latin for ''something that encloses''; septa) is a wall, dividing a Body cavity, cavity or structure into smaller ones. A cavity or structure divided in this way may be referred to as septate. Examples Hum ...

remaining in place. The mandible is thought to belong to a young adult individual, but sex estimation is not possible. The mandibular body was robust, and a well-differentiated

mylohyoid line The mylohyoid line is a bony ridge on the internal surface of the mandible. It runs posterosuperiorly. It is the site of origin of the mylohyoid muscle, the superior pharyngeal constrictor muscle, and the pterygomandibular raphe. Structure The ...

and a posteriorly-positioned lateral prominence are derived traits. Overall, the mandible has no

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

traits, but quite similar to ''

Homo antecessor ''Homo antecessor'' (Latin "pioneer man") is an extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Archaeological Site of Atapuerca, Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago during the Early ...

''. The teeth are characteristic of ''Homo erectus''.

Classification

Liu ''et al.'' (2017) suggest that the Hexian hominins either belong to the same robust-jawed paleodeme as the Penghu hominin, or a robust morph of mainland ''Homo erectus''. Overall, the morph displays primitive traits that is roughly contemporaneous with the hominins at Zhoukoudian. Wu ''et al.'' (2006) suggest that the differences are on account of local variation rather than

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

-level differences, and that the Zhoukoudian sample is not representative of the taxon's full diversity. In comparison with Zhoukoudian, the Hexian crania are derived in the frontal and posterior regions, but derived towards Indonesian populations in the lateral region. Cui and Wu (2015) suggest that these are either retentions or gene flow between regions.

Notable people

* Zhang Ji,

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

poet and author *

Jackie Chan Fang Shilong (born Chan Kong-sang; 7 April 1954), known professionally as Jackie Chan,; is a Hong Kong actor and filmmaker, known for his slapstick, acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and innovative stunts, which he typically perf ...

, actor and martial artist (ancestry) * Xu Haifeng, first Chinese gold Olympic medal winner * Shou-Wu Zhang, mathematician

References

{{Authority control County-level divisions of Anhui Paleoanthropological sites Ma'anshan